


Cynics and Romantics

by SpiritOfFox



Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Princess Bride Fusion, Crack Treated Seriously, Fluff, I Don't Even Know, If I Missed A Tag Tell Me And I Will Add It, Jack being Jack, Nonbinary Zer0, Other, Siren Rhys, Trans Rhys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-11-02 02:27:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 27,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20590691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SpiritOfFox/pseuds/SpiritOfFox
Summary: Once upon a time on Pandora there was a farmboy and a farmhand who fell in love. Then life happened.This is a story of scheming, betrayals, duels, torture, psychos, sirens, bad people, good people, dethroning, miracles, passion and of course, most important of all... TRUE LOVE™️.AKA a Princess Bride Zerhys AU written for the Borderlands MiniBang 2019.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> First of all, look at the lovelies I got paired with: [@GlitchedHound](https://twitter.com/GlitchedHound) and [@hyperioncompanyman](https://hyperioncompanyman.tumblr.com)!  
They are both amazing and I love what they made for this fic. I would like to thank them for being such awesome companions on this journey and my occasional mental breakdowns.
> 
> Second of all, a giant thank you for [@conformityvictim](https://conformityvictim.tumblr.com/) AKA [@sleeplittlechild](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sleeplittlechild/pseuds/sleeplittlechild) who is the BEST and I love her so much for betaing this mess into actual coherency.
> 
> Last but not least, I'd like to thank the organizers [@The Borderlands Big Bang Challenge](https://borderlandsbigbang.tumblr.com/) for orchestrating this MiniBang and I'm sorry for the occasional idiotic question I asked of you all. :D

_“Cynics are simply thwarted romantics.”_

_ **The Princess Bride by William Goldman** _

### Part One of Three

Rhys was born on a relatively small farm on a planet called Pandora into almost complete anonymity. However, historians would later say, that there was nothing else noteworthy that year happening on Pandora. 

Especially nothing else that would outshine that event.

In the year that Rhys was born, the most beautiful person in the galaxy was a young man named Axton, who was the second son of a rather unremarkable duke from the planet of Hieronymous. It didn’t escape the notice of several of the young maidens and the gentlemen surrounding the family, especially the young Marchioness Sarah, who devised an elaborate plan to secure the young gentleman for herself, despite the differences in their ranks. 

This plan consisted of several sub-plans, 3 goats, an entire carriage filled with wheels of cheese and a large number of different types of noble alcoholic beverages. 

Most of it also failed right at the beginning - who knew that young gentlemen were so nitpicky?

In the end, she didn’t need to do much actually because for some reason Axton was smitten with the quite awkward courtship of the Marchioness and they eloped over the loud complaints of his family. 

Rumor said that Axton was happily following his wife from war to war and gracing her soldiers with his handsome visage.

The year Rhys turned nine, the most beautiful person title belonged to a young woman named Lilith. She had the most amazing shade of red hair ever seen on a human in the last few centuries and her eyes were golden like the setting sun on a warm summer's eve.

Coincidentally, she also had a rather fiery temper and decided that her true love was making explosives. And you can’t do that with long, unbound hair swinging around and laces and the like waiting to catch on fire, so she grabbed a scissor and cut her hair before she dressed into simpler clothing and went on a journey to become the best at blowing stuff up. 

When Rhys was twelve, the most beautiful person title was shared between two men, one of them was named Mordecai and the other was aptly called Brick. The two of them weren’t actually physically beautiful, but there was an inner beauty to them.

Which was the reason why several others on the list under the two grumbled about the whole thing, because who heard about having two people as _the most beautiful_ person in the galaxy? That’s a superlative, there can be only one!

But Rhys didn’t really care about any of these things. 

Well, of course, like a lot of young men and women before him (and around him) he was rather concerned with succeeding in his life, with doing something memorable, that would grant him wealth and prestige. However, at the tender age of fifteen, he was more concerned with managing the farm his parents left him before they swanned off to who knows where to enjoy their second honeymoon. Or maybe their third? Rhys wasn’t quite sure as they were rather free spirits.

So here he was, missing an arm, sometimes managing a crumbling farm that was only kept together with duct-taped hope and the help of Zer0, the slightly suspicious farmhand. Not that Rhys would ever tell them that, heaven forbid that the man, alien, robot, whatever would get a bigger head than the bulky mask they always wore.

Zer0 wasn’t a recent addition to their household; they had been a part of the Strongfork family for a few years by then. They pretty much turned from a young person into an adult-ish figure under the tutelage of Rhys’ mother, who was the matriarch of their little family as was usual in their ancestral line. But that was a thing his parents brought with them when they decided to settle down on Pandora for some reason.

This little planet, in a rather hidden and backwards part of the universe, was one most travelers only came to enjoy the few more livable resorts built in the last few years by the Hyperion Empire encroaching into their space.

And as Pandora didn’t really have a standing military, or any type of government or actually… even the population was quite divided into smaller settlements surrounded by bandit camps at this point, so all in all the Hyperion expansion was largely unhindered.

But once again, that didn’t mean anything to Rhys as he was trying to keep them all afloat until his parents were back and he could finally get away from it all and the whole survival mode he found himself in.

Excuse him, once upon a time when he finally reached the age that he could articulate his thoughts and feelings out, he was sure that he didn’t have to worry about the farm or their ancestral line ever again. 

But his parents didn’t have another kid aside from him, so he was doomed to manage the farm in their absence. Which was helped and only occasionally hindered by Zer0.

Not that he actually outright hindered anything, they were a model employee on the surface. Rhys, however, was convinced that there was a greater mystery surrounding them and he wasn’t thinking about the most obvious question of all: how did they not get a heat stroke in those dark shirts and slacks they were always wearing?

Even Rhys was wearing billowy white shirts and slacks, though he hated that he had to layer over his upper body in the agonizing heat.

But his mother and father were both very precise over saying that he shouldn’t go around half-naked, he was a young man now. Rhys thought it was utter bullshit, most of Pandora’s residents couldn’t care less about his scrawny upper body.

Point was, Rhys would be the first person to tell that he was rather scrawny. He did shoot up like one of those bamboo plants, which were quickly taking over one of the first resorts built on Pandora and also one of the first abandoned ones when it figured that introducing some species to their hostile ecosystem wasn't exactly the best idea, when he started going through puberty, but he didn’t pack on muscle easily, not even with the monthly shots he got from Dr. Zed. Also missing an arm.

So Rhys felt like he was in the right when he hoisted anything involving heavy lifting to Zer0. 

The first time he did that, the clunky mask turned towards him and there was only a slightly rough “As you wish.” coming from them in answer.

The farmhand looked like a beanpole at first glance, very tall, but thin like a stick, like a swifter breeze could snap them in half.

But seeing them heaving around all those weights without hesitation or any complaining did something to Rhys’ heart, a bit different than the usual humming rhythm, but he attributed it to a heartburn after the rather spicy lunch he managed to eat.

Nobody expressed any doubts about the physical prowess of the Strongfork’s farmhand once they saw them tossing around several hundred kilos of produce without stopping despite the somewhat fragile air around them.

So the last few years went like this, with the farmhand only ever answering the following to every request made by Rhys.

“Zer0, fetch me that bag of feed.”

“As you wish.”

“Bring over that fertilizer, quickly or Mother will have our hides.”

“As you wish.”

“Don’t tell Dad I hid here!”

“As you wish.”

That was all he ever answered, the slightly muffled voice growing stranger and stranger with each passing answer between them.

And Rhys’ gaze started to linger despite all his attempts at trying to stop that from happening.

Their farmhand, his Zer0 was growing up too, as Rhys was growing up.

That last part didn’t escape their neighbors' notice as Rhys followed his Father and Mother frequently into the town to deal with some matters. Also to visit the doctor when needed, though Zed didn’t exactly live in the middle of town.

So it quickly became a rumor that the Strongfork’s had a very beautiful son, one could say the prettiest young man on the entire planet.

Not that Rhys knew or cared about any of this, at the time he was more tempted with eating another sweet thing and ordering around Zer0 who did everything he asked. What did he need the neighboring sons and daughters for? What did they have, which he didn’t have and wanted and what could they do, that Zer0 couldn’t? Nothing was the answer.

Still, the rumors went on, and grew and grew and eventually it was known pretty much in every corner of the galaxy that Rhys Strongfork of Pandora was one of the 20 most beautiful people.

So this way Rhys eventually became thirteen, then fourteen, then fifteen.

And one day came a Count of Hyperion in a golden Loaderbot, to inquire about their farm’s prime produce.

Heaven knows what he would have wanted with their actual products, Pandora wasn’t exactly famous for its edible flora and fauna. So if Hyperion wanted to use safe food, they were better off with importing their stuff off-planet. 

Outsiders who ate Pandoran plants for the first time always got some rather nasty symptoms before their bodies, especially their stomach started to get used to the local specialties.

The Count came, spoke with Rhys’ parents, and they’ve agreed to supply some of the resorts with things on a trial basis.

It was a surprisingly quick thing, and the Count only looked at Rhys a few times in the beginning.

They thought all of that was over with nothing more to follow and mostly it was. Well until another golden Loader came with two passengers, the Count, and the Countess too this time.

The Countess was an intimidating woman, much more intimidating than the Count next to her.

Rhys had to swallow a few times when those piercing golden eyes stared at him over the pot of caffeine his parents offered to the pair before the Count left his wife and him alone. 

“And you are…?” The woman asked him and Rhys stuttered for a few seconds before he could tell her his name. Some questions came, following up and Rhys basically felt like he wasn’t present, like the Countess only asked these questions of him because she was bored at the most, she wasn’t actually interested in any of the answers.

Except then Zer0 knocked on the plywood of the screen door, then showed his mask inside and Rhys could feel the Countess perking up, something predatory in her pose.

Rhys looked at the Countess, then back to the farmhand and felt nervousness deep within. 

He didn’t like how she looked at Zer0.

There was something uncomfortably hot in his gut, and he felt like he was vibrating out of his skin.

He really didn’t like how she looked at Zer0.

“Yes, Farmhand? Have you finished watering the bluballs?” He stood up and started walking toward them, with some appropriately apologetic words toward the Countess telling her that he absolutely needed to deal with the farmhand and that it was so hard to find good help on Pandora in those days.

The Countess put down the untouched cup of caffeine onto its small saucer, a somewhat mocking smile on her face as she stood up and stalked toward the two. 

However, her eyes were only on Zer0.

“A farmhand, are you?” She asked with a purr and Zer0 tilted their head to the side but didn’t answer anything. Rhys felt sweat slide down his back.

“They are mute, your Grace!” He blurted out, wincing a bit for the lie and hoping he wasn’t caught in it.

The woman dragged her gaze up and down their form, lingering on specific parts before she licked her painted lips with a small leer. “How sad… Their kind is always such delightful company to have…”

Rhys could feel Zer0’s body heat behind him standing stock still and he felt a bit reassured for some reason. Well, it wasn’t entirely unknown, sometime after last winter Zer0 became a sense of protection for him. 

There were some rumors going around town and sometimes people showed up to settle an account with Rhys, total strangers he didn’t know and whom Zer0 usually chased away or dispatched quickly. Rhys never did realize that they were trying to court him; that the rumors about his beauty made them bold enough to try to become his suitors.

And had promptly been handed their asses by this almost scarerakk looking beanpole, who wielded knives and pitchforks with deadly intent, and the rumors of the vicious guard dog of Rhys Strongfork became something of a local legend.

But Rhys himself never actually realized the true intent of their bumbling attempts and he was convinced that they were trying to settle some debt with him. Even if he wasn’t sure why with him of all people?

All in all, Rhys trusted Zer0 to have his back in dangerous situations and the Countess radiated enough danger for him to be very grateful for the sense of security the farmhand provided.

Right until he realized, that while the Countess wasn’t interested in anything he said, she was very interested in everything Zer0 did.

That bothered Rhys. 

Not the fact that she was ignoring him in favor of them, but that she was looking at Zer0 with those eyes. 

And Zer0 did nothing to discourage her, he even let her touch him!

The nerve of them! Rhys fumed several hours later on when they were getting ready for bed and his mother did their daily ritual of braiding his long hair up. “Darlin’, please make sure that we have enough water for the week in the tanks and that there is enough gruel for the animals.” His mother said as she brushed his tangled curls into some semblance of order. “Your Daddy is quite taken with his experiments in the shed and I need you to help me with the harvest soon. Are you listening to me, Darlin’?”

Rhys nodded absently, still fuming about the Countess and Zer0 before he hissed when his hair got pulled.

“What’s the matter, my Darlin’? What has your feathers twisted around so heavily?” His mother frowned, her blue eyes still twinkling. To Rhys, she was the most beautiful woman in the entire world, her freckled face and copper hair and warm smile like gentle sunlight. She was a tiny, plump woman, next to his father’s taller and more severe form the contrast was rather jarring to outsiders. 

And between the two of them, his mother was the cold, calculating one and his father the absentminded professor actually. Except to Rhys - she might be hard on him, she might have the occasional perfectionist attitude, but he was truly the apple of his mother’s eyes, her perfect little prince.

“Nothing Mama.” He said and hummed quietly, gaze miles and miles away. Alarm bells started blaring around in her head at that. Her little boy never called her Mama, only when he was inconsolable about something. She stared at him, her boy deep in thought and never noticing the attention. He seemed to be mulling over something, something that bothered him if the furrowed brows meant anything else. 

“Is it about the Count coming in today?” She asked, worried that he knew about some of the Count’s strange behavior which happened that day. Strange behavior when the 30-something Count was asking questions about her 15-year-old son, which made her go steely and steelier. 

The Count was sniffing around her underage son and she thought about the logistics of hiding his body behind the shed and whether she could disguise his death as an accidental wandering into a skag nest or not while answering evasively and fingering one of the sickles on the table in the shed. Oh, his interest wasn’t quite obvious, but she knew those looks from the first time she saw them. 

And she didn’t appreciate them at all, that’s why she led him away almost immediately when he showed up with his wife.

And left her boy alone with the lesser evil, but now he was sullen and worry rolled of him.

“Mother?” He asked after a while when she finished tying up the end of this braid with a ribbon. She hummed in answer to show that she was listening. “Is Zer0 going to leave with the Count?”

She stopped and blinked down at his red face with a questioning tilt of her eyebrows.

“What brought this on, my Darlin’?”

Rhys huffed and flushed further before he got himself to speak what was on his mind, thinking back to the Countess and Zer0 and her words and her body language and he felt himself get flustered/angry again.

“I don’t know what she would see in the big lug, they are useless and such a bore, Mother!” It suddenly bubbled out of him and his mother was a bit surprised. Her gentle, awkward soft-spoken son… yes, he was a bit spoiled at times, but this wasn’t characteristic of him. And as if the dam broke, the words started spilling out of him uninterrupted. “They are useless and so stupid and annoying and why would anyone take a second look at them when they were so utterly boring and uninteresting?!” He didn’t even notice he stood up, standing in his pajamas before his mother, the picture of the Countess laying her ancient hands-on Zer0’s arm flashing through his mind, making him rant more and more vehemently.

His mother sat on the small stool, mouth opened slightly, brush forgotten in her hands.

“She talked about like she couldn’t wait to eat them and why would she do that, Mother?” He asked with tears in his eyes and she needed a few minutes to remember whether they had the skags and stalkers talk with him yet, because he probably didn’t talk about actual cannibalistic eating, right? And who was exactly this she, the Countess? Or someone else from town?

But then Zer0 didn’t go into town recently, they got antsy surrounded by too many people… and she had a small inkling that it was also partly because they couldn’t be sure that Rhys was okay if they were away. 

Yes, she knew that Zer0 had a small crush on her son and she was okay with it. Whether they were a man, a robot or an alien… they protected Rhys.

She was sure that one day that small crush might become true love.

Call it motherly intuition of a sort.

“Darlin’, is this about the Countess and Zer0?” she asked when he stopped to take a deep breath.

“Yes!” he shouted and then went red to the roots of his hair. That was something he got from her. Both of them burned before they started to get tan, they had freckles even on their freckles and they looked like rambutans when they went embarrassed.

She had to hide her smile and brought him into a hug, gently patting his head.

Oh to be young again. 

“I’m sure my Darlin’, that they would not leave with the Count and Countess even if they offered them a thousand treasures…” she started when Rhys interrupted her.

“But why Mother? How can you be so sure?”

She had to cough a few times to hide her laugh, she didn’t want to embarrass him further. She also wouldn’t say anything about the crush thing, she would let him figure it out on his own. 

That way she definitely had enough entertainment on boring days.

“Darlin, this isn’t the first time Zer0 was almost poached by another farm. They like it here and they would definitely tell us if they wanted to leave.” She shrugged and hoped that reassured her son.

“Oh.” Rhys uttered and then they said their goodbyes for the night.

And he spent hours tossing and turning around, still worried, his mind definitely not at ease, lingering on the way the Countess dared to put those manicured claws on Zer0’s shirt, to feel up their body.

Consequently, the next morning he had an entire luggage under his eyes, the likes of which even his Dad noticed, but failed to question as his lovely wife elbowed him in the side without a second thought.

Rhys spent the next few days in something of a daze, ignoring his furiously whispering parents and the unholy glee pouring off of his Mother and the bewildered expression on his Dad’s face. He mechanically did his chores, he ordered Zer0 around a bit, but his heart wasn’t in place for it all.

The fact that Zer0 could have left already several times and he never knew of it? That worried him.

He ordered them around, he abused them with words, he made fun of them, he bullied them for the last few years and they bore it with grace, only every answering ‘As you wish’ to his every unreasonable demand! 

Did they not have some self-respect?! 

Why did they even remain there, why didn't they ever object or anything?!

Why, why why?!

And why did Rhys never notice that their form was actually rather strong-looking, that their shoulders were getting wider? That every time they said those three words, their voice became a deep purr?

Oh, he thought with some dread. 

Oh, shit, he was in love with Zer0? How did that happen? When did that happen?

Shit, he didn’t even know what they looked like under that mask? 

Were they even human under all of that getup? Did they have an unfortunate accident with some baler or something to only have four fingers on each hand? 

Or were they some kind of robot? An android with synthetic muscles on their exoskeleton?

Maybe an alien? He could be like a dinosaur under that mask.

Strange, he thought but he didn’t get discouraged by those things, he still felt in love with Zer0.

So he fell asleep while being in love with Zer0. 

He ate his breakfast the next day while being in love with Zer0.

He washed his teeth while being in love with Zer0.

He avoided Zer0 while being in love with Zer0.

He did his chores and ate lunch and did his studying and ate dinner and cleaned himself up while being in love with Zer0.

Day in, day out.

However, our story wouldn’t go anywhere if this was all he did, because eventually avoiding Zer0 wasn’t an option anymore, so Rhys continued his pining in silence but in the presence of them.

But soon he realized something and that was that every time Zer0 told him ‘As you wish’ to one of his unreasonable demands, they meant something else.

Every one of them was an ‘I love you’ too.

And that, that changed a lot of things the day when Rhys realized that. He looked up from the mulch he ordered Zer0 to help with and stared at their back wide-eyed.

They eventually noticed the absence of sounds from the normally noisy young man at their side and turned back to them in question with a half-opened bag in hand.

Rhys dropped the tools from his hand down to the ground and took a step, then two toward them almost hesitantly, right until he was standing before them, looking up at them over the few inches of difference. 

He raised his hands towards the mask on their face and Zer0 stood there patiently, waiting for them to remove it with a small accepting nod to the gentle question.

[Art by Glitchedhound](https://twitter.com/GlitchedHound/status/1171675106663256065?s=20)

The young man did so with shaking fingers then looked onto their face for the first time in their life.

“I can work with that.” He said and raised himself up slightly to nuzzle against them.

“Can I… can I kiss you?” He asked after a second blushing to the tips of his ears.

Zer0 nodded then only said “As you wish” somewhat playfully.

Historians would later state that their first kiss was one of the top ten most romantic kisses of all time in the history of the galaxy.

~~~ 

The two of them didn’t spend too much time together after they figured out that neither of their love was unrequited.

Zer0, after some long and careful deliberation, made the decision to leave the farm and Pandora, to try their luck out so that they and Rhys still could have their happy ever after in case the farm finally collapsed financially.

Because it was only a matter of time before that happened, both of them could see that.

Rhys was rather unhappy about letting them leave, worried about their safety, but Zer0 was determined to do him right, no matter what Rhys told them.

They had their tearful goodbyes in the train station that was closest to the farm and Rhys watched them board the train which would take them into one of the Extraction Zones on the planet to board a space ship eventually. 

But… Rhys’ hopes and dreams dashed when he learned that the train was derailed when it passed one of the areas overtaken by the Vault Hunters. 

They were a mismatched bunch, rumors said, but they had one thing in common across all stories.

They killed anyone whom they deemed to be a danger to them in any shape and form.

And most things on Pandora were dangerous.

Including the locals the train was transporting.

Rhys. Rhys didn’t take the news too well.

He retreated to his room and didn’t come out for days, neither eating nor sleeping, just sitting on the floor and retreating deeper and deeper into his mind.

He knew that he would never love any other ever again.

~~~

Rhys grew up, his parents didn’t leave for some time until after the absence of Zer0 wasn’t such a painful thing for all of them. 

Then the unthinkable happened and because of a freak accident, Rhys lost both of his parents the same night and he officially inherited the farm and everything else.

Rhys raged, Rhys shouted, but there was nothing else to it, he was alone completely for the first time in his life, without any support from his some-times absent parents or the rock-solid sense of security that was Zer0 behind him. 

He didn’t sleep for a day, and he looked at the old abandoned building next to the farm where his parents died.

They went in there because they all knew by then that the farm’s days were numbered and maybe the relatively recently purchased spot of land added to their few acres could hold something to turn their luck around. If everything wasn’t already plundered and removed from the buildings.

Their luck would have that the main building wasn’t plundered and there was only one reason for that. Some of the defense systems were still active.

Rhys’ mother was sure that she could disable the defense system before it could hurt them, but she didn’t know that an old program resurfaced the moment they opened up the door and took a few steps inside.

The bullet hail killed both of them instantly and the security system turned itself off again when the intruders were eliminated.

Three years passed like this.

Rhys was turning eighteen when the Count first reappeared on the farm, looking to renegotiate the deal between them and Hyperion.

At this point, while the farm wasn’t quite stable, they were relatively secure financially. Which didn’t mean that they could lose the income from supplying Hyperion’s resorts.

And they couldn’t afford to supply more of them with their current produced quantity. They were already stretching themselves thin and the Count demanded more.

Rhys didn’t know why the Count was increasingly hostile towards him in the last few months, but he definitely felt tension every time the man appeared in that Loaderbot. The Countess’ last visit was when she appeared with the Count in the wake of the train disaster, to have a talk with Rhys.

Rumors said that she left suddenly for the North and was waging war against the planetside Vault Hunters currently. Other rumors said that she left Pandora entirely and was living as the Emperor’s mistress. Last, there was a rumor that she got estranged from her husband and left him behind on Pandora and went back to rule over their County.

Maybe that was the reason behind the Count’s bad mood?

Rhys didn’t know and he didn’t actually care. He disliked the Countess a bit when he was younger because she showed too much interest in Zer0, so he was jealous of her. 

But here he was, Zer0 was dead, the world was a loveless and bleak place and from each visit of the Count, he got more and more disgusted by him.

If the Countess was living the high life away from him? Good for her.

Nobody deserved to live with the slimy Count and his quite creepy adoration for the Emperor of Hyperion in his opinion. 

He did have to wonder why someone like the Emperor would bear someone like the Count next to him because if the boasting of the Count could be believed, he was a frequent guest in the Hyperion Palace.

Not that Rhys took much stock in his words, it was almost telling that the Count was relegated to being the head of the Pandoran Resorts instead of somewhere closer to home. Or in a more prestigious position.

Pretty much anything that wasn’t on Pandora or about something Pandoran.

But one day, it wasn’t the Count who arrived in a somewhat dingy-looking Loaderbot, but rather two men. One was half Loaderbot, which didn’t raise many eyebrows, as Pandorans had a rather accepting view on cybernetics and amputated/lost limbs. In fact, even Rhys had a cybernetic arm by then and he was thinking about purchasing an eye implant if he had the money for it. 

However, the other gentleman was riding a horse… which was sparkling like nothing he had ever seen, as if it was made of diamonds? Rhys had to scratch his temple and watch them get up onto the driveway and towards the main building.

They were out in one of the fields, weeding in rotation and he was dirty and sweaty and probably very much not fit to entertain anyone who could afford a horse made of diamonds.

But it wasn’t like anyone who had that money would wait for him to get himself presentable and they might be just asking for directions, he thought.

So, he dusted off the knees of his overalls and stood up, planting one hand on top of his straw hat to keep it on his head. He lost several of them to the wind already that season.

The pair stood on the porch and he walked up to them with a greeting.

“Hello, can I help you?”

He interrupted the monologuing of the man who previously rode the diamond horse, it was something about a butt stallion and the dusty roads, whatever the first part meant.

The man turned around and Rhys realized with a pang deep within that he was wearing a full-face mask.

Maybe that’s why he didn’t even realize first that the man crossed the distance between the two of them and looked up at him from a few centimeters between Rhys mouth and the man’s eyes. They were mismatched like his.

“Wilhelm, Nakayama was right for once in his life and it was actually worthwhile to come to this backward shitty planet… Don’t you think so, Wilhelm?” He asked from the man with the loader legs, apparently named Wilhelm, while he felt up Rhys’ face with his hands, knocking off his hat, all without asking anything else first, like Rhys’ permission.

Rhys’ mama didn’t raise no quitter, and she was very thorough in her education of her only child regarding the matters of perverts and molesters, so Rhys batted away the offending hand and took a step back, actually straightening out to his full height almost immediately.

“Is there anything I can help you with, _Sir,_ or are you just here to make trouble?” He asked with some frostiness. 

The man threw back his head and laughed for a few minutes, loud guffaws the likes of which Rhys hasn't actually heard from a real-live human being except maybe on the ECHOnet. 

“Ah, Wilhelm, can you believe that?!” He threw back to the still unamused cyborg behind him, who continued scanning the environment with only a small answering grunt. Probably, a bodyguard.

“Oh, you are a hoot, Sweetheart. Luckily for you, you are cute, to balance out that dumbness.” The man told Rhys airily and he grabbed the collar of his shirt when the young man sputtered in indignation.

“Listen, Cupcake.” And now his voice was all steel, as he brought Rhys down to his level and green and blue stared into brown and blue. “Everything I do is right and maybe you should learn that quickly, Cupcake, because we will have an eternity to spend together, I’m sure of it.”

Rhys tried to get himself out of his hold, but the man was surprisingly strong even if he had some silver here and there in his dark hair.

“So, would you invite us into the lovely hovel you call home so that we can get this show on the road, or should we continue this outside where every inbred dirty jackass in this bandit-infested hell-hole is watching our little conversation?”

Then not waiting for an actual answer he had Wilhelm kick open the door and dragged the taller young man into the foyer before he dropped him there and looked around the house. Rhys wheezed for a few seconds, suddenly realizing that he was almost choked by the man and that he should be afraid. 

He had guns stashed all over the house like most Pandorans did in the place they lived for a longer time or even spent time regularly.

He tried to figure out which cache was the closest to him when the man finished his perusal.

“You actually haven’t realized yet, who am I, huh, Buttercup?” He asked with ridicule and an equal amount of amazement in his voice.

Rhys stared at the man’s face, with one eyebrow raised. There was something about his eyes that rang a bell, but the mask kind of threw him off.

“Handsome Jack is standing before you, kiddo. You can start freaking out now.” He threw out.

And Rhys almost did.

Because if what the man said was real, then the Emperor of Hyperion was standing before him.

However, scam artists were also real and anyone could say that they were Handsome Jack. Much less a man in a mask.

“And I should believe you, why? Just because you said so?” 

It was clear that the man never really figured that he would be questioned by a country bumpkin like that, but that meant nothing. Sasha and Fiona always stated that the key to a successful scam was all about confidence - of course, they only ever spoke about the matter hypothetically. Of course.

The man started laughing again, one hand covering his face mask, so Rhys inched toward the pot of Mustard Flowers where there was a small Atlas gun hidden. 

“Oh, Cupcake. You will make a wonderful Imperial Consort.”

Rhys stopped and looked at the madman standing in his living room and took in the way the mask stretched into a manic grin.

“What?” That was the only thing he could say.

“We are here in this little backward hellhole because I need to marry and I chose you as my consort.”

Rhys stared at him.

“My advisors said that I need to marry someone preferably from this shithole.”

Rhys continued to stare at him.

“You are like the only worthwhile looking person in this cesspit.”

The two men stared at each other, one still not believing a single word out of the other mouth, the other still disbelieving that the younger one wasn’t jumping in joy about this news.

“Yeah, right.” Rhys grabbed the pistol, and resignedly pointed at the masked man. Wilhelm immediately moved between them, before he was waved away by the Handsome Jack impersonator, who walked up to him unconcerned about the weapon’s muzzle against his shoulders.

“I’ll take that as acceptance, kiddo. Wilhelm, we are leaving for now.” And with that he walked out the door, followed by his bodyguard before he turned back one last time. “You should put your affairs in order, we will be back in a month.”

Rhys figured that was it once the two left the farm.

He would always have a gun on him and that he would not let himself be bossed around by madmen in his own home.

The thing was… that the man was actually Handsome Jack.

And he really showed up a month later with an entire Imperial entourage and Rhys knew that he was way over his head.

~~~

Rhys spent his first days in Opportunity, just trying to get used to the different customs of Hyperion before he was dragged into the Imperial Court by his ‘beloved’ fiancé. 

He might have believed that the whole thing was a joke at first, but by then he realized that if it was a joke, then it was a very elaborate one.

His fiancé spent a lot of time outside Opportunity, usually chasing and killing bandits from what Rhys heard. This didn’t stop the young man from trying to question the man every few days about this entire affair.

“Let’s say I believe you are Handsome Jack…”

“Goodie, you are still debating that, kiddo?”

“Why would you marry anyone from Pandora?”

“It will look good on my charity work.”

“No, really, why are you set on marrying from here?”

“Would you believe it if I said it’s part of my nefarious plan to have my bride murdered after our wedding so that I can colonize Pandora too?”

“...What?”

“Don’t ask such idiotic questions next time, Cupcake.”

“But… why me?”

“I can actually look at you without seeing a bandit, what do you think, Sweetheart?”

“I don’t want to marry you.”

“I’m your Emperor, you will marry me.”

“You are certainly not my Emperor and I’ll not.”

“I’m the Emperor of Hyperion and I’ll not be refused, Cupcake.”

“And I’m Rhys of Pandora and I just did.”

“Those who stand against me tend to die painfully, Rhys of Pandora.”

“Then kill me, Your Imperial Majesty.”

“Why would you choose death over marrying me? Have I not offered you everything you could ever want, Cupcake?”

“There is no marriage without love, not one I want to have. And I could never love anyone ever again.”

“Who said anything about love? This is purely business, Cupcake.”

“What do you mean?”

“You can choose between becoming the second most powerful man in the galaxy, to have all of Hyperion’s resources and might behind you or you can die an agonizing death while suffocating in space. Your choice, Sweetheart.”

“I’ll never love you.”

“Cupcake, I don’t even need you to like me.”

“I still don’t know what’s in this for you.”

“Would you believe if I said that I was struck by your beauty and fell in love at first sight?”

“No.”

“Then believe that I need someone who would never be able to endanger my Imperial rule.”

“How can you even marry a commoner like me?”

“I’m the Emperor, I do what I want.”

“No, but really?”

“And you are already the Grand Prince of Promethea.”

“... I’m the prince of the what, now?”

Rhys only later realized that there were several truths mixed in these conversations. 

Much much later. 

And that’s how a month passed and how Rhys became royalty in a somewhat questionable manner.

There was one little interplay with Sasha and Fiona after the first rumors started flying around, who managed to sneak into Opportunity, to save Rhys if he needed, which he declined gratefully and left them the farm’s management in his absence. 

Vaughn - who was Rhys’ appointed man-servant - felt the stirrings of love in his heart staring at the trio, but he decided to endure for a bit, as he liked Rhys quite a lot, which was quite unusual for him as he preferred numbers over people 90% of the time.

At the end of that period, Rhys and Vaughn were promptly whisked off-planet in a gold and black Imperial Spaceship and taken to one of the province planets of the late Atlas Empire. The planet which was now under Rhys’ name actually.

And he spent almost every waking hour learning all he could about his subjects, etiquette and Galactic history and everything that an Imperial Consort could need.

And the galaxy tried to figure out with bated breath why the Emperor of Hyperion frequently visited Promethea. 

They talked about a new lover.

About a great beauty who turned Handsome Jack’s playboy ways around.

Some talked about the Emperor finding one of their children from a jilted lover.

Nobody knew what was happening, and those who were in the known knew to keep everything quiet because Handsome Jack’s fury was a thing to behold.

This way two years passed before it was announced over the ECHOnet that the Grand Prince of Promethea who was hidden and raised on Pandora is marrying the Emperor of Hyperion to rule at his side as the Imperial Consort.

~~~

~~~


	2. Chapter 2

_“Why do you wear a mask and hood?"_

_“I think everybody will in the near future," was the man in black's reply. "They're terribly comfortable.” _

_**The Princess Bride by William Goldman** _

### Part Two of Three

Rhys traveled back to Pandora to get ready for the wedding, which would happen in a month. 

Vaughn was with him and a relatively small retinue of the Imperial Court, including some of Hyperion’s Elite Forces. 

Count Nakayama too, Rhys was unhappy to say.

Nisha Kadam divorced the Count finally and spent her time regularly moving between Promethea and Pandora. Rhys then knew that there was something to the rumors, that Jack and she were an item once upon a time, but that stopped by her accounts.

She wasn’t okay with messing around with a man who was engaged or married. 

Rhys told her that what he and Jack had wasn’t about love, there weren't any feelings involved, but she was determined. 

She would never be the mistress of anyone.

So, Rhys did his morning routine, then he stood in front of a reinforced window at the top of the highest skyscraper of Opportunity. He would have gone out into the rooftop garden, but he was actually waiting for the go-ahead of his Security to visit the farm. 

That was one of the last things he found joy in, to see the fields and remember Zer0.

With the looming date of his wedding, he would admit that he was more than a bit depressed.

They set out somewhat incognito, Rhys, one soldier who ditched the standard Hyperion colors driving, two cloaked infiltrators in the buggy and one cloaked sniper in the turret’s manning seat. 

They arrived after taking what felt like the scenic tour, sticking to the safer territories and roads to avoid the more blood thirstier bandit camps. And animal nests. And killer plants.

Sasha was out on the porch waiting for them, waving at Rhys as he stumbled out of the vehicle with the grace of a wounded gazelle.

“What’s up, Princess?” She shouted while waving her entire body with her momentum. “Where is the short butler-dude?” 

Rhys sighed, his heels clicking on the wooden steps as he climbed up and hugged her.

“Vaughn stayed back. The two of you teased him too much last time.”

“He is still adorable. Hi Bob, is Terry around too?” Sasha turned to the dressed-down Hyperion Commando who cheerfully nodded back at her.

“He is and Miata too.” Then he turned to his charge who waved him away and started walking toward the hill overlooking the Atlas buildings on his property. He didn’t hear Miata, the Hyperion Spook, but that’s why they were one of the elites of the Guard. He knew that Bob’s husband, Terry was already making way high up to the roof, to find a perch to watch their surroundings. 

Not that there was usually much trouble, as it wasn't the harvesting season yet, so not many strangers were recruited to work on the farms. 

One thing that he could thank Jack for, was that the farm was thriving. At that time almost all of the fields were being worked and the output was very generous.

And it only needed some serious capital injection in the first year.

However, there was one part which wasn’t touched at all. 

The Atlas buildings.

Rhys stood before the entrance, staring at the spots of brown on the door.

Nobody went in since they dragged out their bodies, after cutting the last of the power lines connecting the complex to the grid. 

Supposedly the security system should have been offline with that. The emergency generators shouldn’t be powering those either.

He still hesitated with his hand on the door and looked back at the rooftop where Miata de-cloaked, waved at him then she re-cloaked again.

Rhys took a deep breath and went into the building for the first time in years.

If his knees shook, only Terry saw it and he wouldn’t say anything about it.

It was actually quite underwhelming? Like in his mind the entire place looked like it was the mouth of Hell, but it looked utterly boring.

If he was ignoring the bloodstains, and he was ignoring them very hard, it was just a very dirty abandoned building with cracked and dead screens, and strange noises, possibly from some vermin.

Or not, Rhys thought when a more mechanical sound started up and he could feel Terry putting his whole body before him, to stand between him and the noise.

A tense second, then two passed…

Then came a flying little robot which conked into the cloaked armored Terry. 

It turned around confused, before it tried to get through again, but slammed into something that was like an invisible wall. 

Both men looked at the frantically beeping little robot and Rhys had to stifle a laugh, all tension draining out of him.

He stepped around Terry and grabbed the little robot gently, righting it.

“Hey there, aren’t you a little dumpy?” And the robot only chirped, so Rhys let it go, Terry stepping to the side so that the little robot could leave. It turned around a few times, gently swaying in the air before it left their sight completely.

“Your Majesty, some of the robots might be still active?” The Spook asked and Rhys had to consider his answer before he nodded.

“Your Majesty, do you have your shield turned on?”

Rhys patted his side, while he was peering through the corner. The mechanical sound was still going on, it was different from the little robot’s noises.

“Your Majesty, maybe we should leave? Your Majesty? Your Majesty, are you listening?” 

But Rhys wasn’t listening and it was quite strange to have a disembodied voice call out ‘Your Majesty, Your Majesty!’ so many times.

Not that Rhys cared, he was already across half the building and Terry wanted to curse, but that was his future ruler! His Imperial Majesty’s Consort, His Imperial Majesty Rhys Strongfork, Grand Prince of Promethea and Imperial Consort of the Hyperion Empire!

Terry had the sudden urge to start crying, it was a very terrible day whenever his charge started getting curious. 

Things usually went bad; the man had the luck of a skag in the middle of any bandit camp. 

Rhys led the two of them, long legs eating up entire corridors in seconds, Terry constantly trying to get before him to check the corners and new rooms and anything that could be dangerous.

This way the two of them got into a large room, where there was the mechanical sound of wheels on concrete and the frequent cursing of a robotic voice.

Rhys furrowed his eyebrows, that voice was somewhat familiar, though he wasn’t sure why. Terry had a sudden premonition that he didn’t want to be there at all.

And in the room, there was a small robot, which was still way bigger than the previous one, caught up in the cables and swearing in an annoying voice.

Rhys hurried up to help it out, while Terry swallowed back a whimper when he saw the yellow chassis and finally recognized why the voice was so annoyingly familiar.

That was a Hyperion Claptrap.

“Hello and welcome to wherever we are!” It told Rhys when it realized that the man was trying to untangle him from the cables. “Thank you, helpful minion, your assistance is appreciated even if I didn’t need your help!”

Rhys blinked a few times, then continued. “You are welcome…?”

The little robot whirled around when it was finally released and Rhys took a step back in alarm at the sudden move.

“I am Interplanetary Ninja Assassin Claptrap, what’s your name, minion?” 

“Rhys.” 

“Hello to you too, Rhys! It’s so nice to meet you in this dreary and dark place! Certainly, nothing suspicious at all is going to happen!”

Rhys stared at Claptrap confused, and Terry suddenly spoke up.

“Your…” He stopped himself before he could call out the customary title. He had a bad feeling about the Claptrap and it wasn’t anymore about it being one of those quite defective utilitarian robots. “Rhys, we should leave, something is wrong.”

“Who said that?” The way the robot flailed would have been almost comical if the suddenly red headlights didn’t turn unerring to the cloaked Infiltrator. 

Terry froze up for a second before he started running toward his charge, to get him somewhere safe when a screaming giant body-slammed him into the closest wall.

“TIME TO MAKE SOME HEAD WOUNDS!”

The cloaking failed and there was a smear of blood behind Terry’s head and the giant twirled around and took a few menacing steps toward Rhys, a dirty and bloody ax in one of his hands. 

Rhys took an aborted step toward the unconscious form of his guard, before he remembered, that no, he didn’t have much in the way of weapons on him and that he probably had no chance in a suit against the Badass Psycho if the Hyperion armor was like tissue paper when push came to shove.

He hesitated too long because he felt his body freeze completely like something was wrapped around him, stopping him from moving. 

He felt warmth pulsating on his left side and he twitched his fingers, then he could slightly move his head. Not much, but he could finally see the blue-haired woman walking into the room from the corner of his eyes.

“That was almost poetic.” He could hear her say, then the psycho bounded up to her. 

“I told ‘em what would happen!”

“Yep, you did, Krieg.” 

“Excuse you two, we have things to do, a prince to murder and a war to start! Get to it, chop-chop!” The annoying robot’s voice interrupted them and Rhys wanted to frown.

That sounded like he was in some deep shit, he thought, then he thought nothing because the blue-haired woman noticed something was off and the world got dark.

“What was that about murder?”

“Helloooo, we are here to start a war, siren lady, we can’t do that with a simple kidnapping!”

“The prince is innocent. There was nothing about murdering an innocent, Claptrap.”

“Plans change, improvise, adapt, overcome!”

The blue-haired woman stared silently at the young man still unconscious in her Phaselock, then back to the psycho who was bludgeoning some larval varkids that broke into the hidden tunnels leading away from the abandoned Atlas complex.

There was one memory running through her mind, a time when Krieg was different for a few seconds and he made her promise something.

_ “If I harm an innocent person, kill me.”_

_~~~_

When Rhys woke up, he was tied up, like he was a trussed-up turkey. His head was hurting and he felt like he had a goose egg-sized bump somewhere under his hair. Oh, and there was some tape over his mouth.

He was also in a boat, with the psycho dude leaning over the side, the snakeheads snapping against the bone of the ax slicing through the water. The blue-haired woman was standing at the wheel, the annoying robot was wheeling up and down and ranting about something.

Rhys quickly tuned it out and thought about jumping into the water, but even if he could get away from the fish with the big-ass teeth, he would still have to deal with the big-ass and angry eels. Either of those would take out a chunk of him without hesitation before his blood drew more of them in and he would be living bait.

He was depressed, he wasn’t actually suicidal. 

A tiny voice inside his head added a faint ‘yet’ at the end of that sentence. 

“Pretty lady?” The psycho suddenly spoke up and the woman grunted at him. “It’s time to go insane!”

She turned around and looked into the dark for a few seconds before seeing the other boat.

“We have a tail.”

“Inconceivable! It must be a fisherman!” The robot exclaimed before it whirred to the back of the boat to scan the surface of the sea they were somewhat crossing. “Hah, it IS a fisherman! Exactly as I said!”

Rhys just watched from the side as the woman rolled her eyes so hard they almost fell out of her head. “Yes, because fisherman do fish in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the night and completely matching our speed.” 

“No rods, no rods, in your bright white…!” Came in a sing-song voice from the peanut gallery where the psycho was still half out of their boat and angering the already murderous fish.

“And there aren't any fishing rods. Or nets.” She continued.

“Then speed up, so THEY. STOP. FOLLOWING.US!!!” The annoying robot flailed and screamed, with its hands in the air.

The woman sighed and started speeding up even more, the occasional iced patch throwing the boat around a bit at times.

As they were more and more bumps, the psycho shuffled to Rhys’ side and gently pulled on the ropes around his wrists. 

Then he grabbed and almost slammed Claptrap to the boat’s floor when it sailed over their head with a shriek.

Rhys watched the woman’s tattoos light up and their ride became a bit smoother, the large ice floats clearing a path for their boat.

It was getting colder, the closer they got to the Frozen Wastes, which might have been given, hence the name, but the Frozen Wastes wasn’t actually frozen all year long. 

There was a regular season change, which was rather drastic, but at that time the Frozen Wastes was in the middle of the colder part of the cycle. 

So that was a rather roundabout way of saying that Rhys was slowly freezing his ass off.

His suit wasn’t made for a colder climate. It offered little to no warmth. 

The woman was in a jumpsuit, with her arms bare and the psycho was only wearing a pair of pants. Despite that neither of them looked like they were feeling the chill, the psycho actually radiated warmth and Rhys would never admit that he wanted to snuggle into him.

Rhys hated the cold. Though he hated the summer heat more as one couldn’t shed their own skin after just going nude, because any clothing was too warm, but this type of cold, that was slowly chilling him deep in his bones… He hated that.

It felt like his internal organs were freezing up slowly.

“Look at that, that’s the Liar’s Berg!” The robot exclaimed once again, one hand pointing at the sheer iced-over cliff that they were heading to. Like they were going towards it full speed and Rhys had to squeeze his eyes shut because there was no way that they would be able to stop in time and he didn’t want to die like that. 

But the crash didn’t come and there was only a slight bump as the nose of the boat met the ice. 

They swayed there for a few seconds before the woman’s impatient shout sounded.

“Krieg!”

Rhys opened his eyes when he felt a steel bar across his chest and he looked down at his swaying legs. Turning to the side, he saw that the psycho had dropped the robot down and he was grabbing a sturdy rope that was grappled into the wall somewhere over the top. 

The woman jumped onto the psycho’s back, one arm around his neck, the other lighting up along the tattoos.

Rhys ignored the screaming about hurrying up and watched with some delight as the robot was enveloped in the light and suddenly stopped making noises. Or moving. It was just gently floating up behind them as the psycho climbed up.

“Krieg?” The woman suddenly spoke up.

“All aboard the Psycho Express!”

“What are we doing?” She asked quietly.

Only silence was her answer, Rhys looked down at the drop under them and saw the other boat coming closer to the cliff, a masked black-figure visible at the helm. He tried to say something, but only managed some muffled sounds. The woman turned to him, then she looked down and saw their tail getting out onto the small shelf.

They - as in the psycho, the woman and Rhys - were almost at the top and the woman launched the robot over the edge with a careless wave. The light went out from under her skin and only a drawn-out robotic scream could be heard for a while. 

“FLYING!” The psycho exclaimed.

Then they got over the edge, and the woman dragged out the robot from the pile of snow it landed in.

“What was that?! You do NOT throw a NINJA ASSASSIN DROID around, WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU?”

“I thought that we wanted to be faster.” She grinned slightly.

“I didn’t hire you to think! I hired you to be the muscle while I make the plans! Now, what is up with our pursuer?!”

The psycho, Krieg, was on his knees peering over the edge.

“You think that’s the end, but it goes on and on and on, no frayed edges to stop!”

“Ah.” The woman only said that in reaction, looking mildly worried suddenly, but didn’t elaborate.

The Claptrap went to the side, then tried to look down, but only the fast grab of the psycho saved it from falling down the edge.

“What? What is it? What’s happening?!” It asked over and over again and both Rhys and the woman stared at it uncomprehendingly. 

Krieg clearly said that their pursuer was climbing up the wall using their rope, what more needed to be said?

“Itsy-bitsy spiderant, climbing up the wall, slice, goes the knife and make the spider fall....” Krieg started singing, the deep voice had an almost grating quality to it. It was not the worst rendition of a children lullaby Rhys had ever heard, that goes to either Jack who was singing to his teenage daughter to annoy her or his father when he decided that he absolutely needed to share the songs of his people with his child and managed to scar him for the next fifteen years.

“That’s inconceivable! Cut the rope, what are you waiting for, am I the only one who thinks here at all?” Came the robot’s frantic voice when it managed to parse out the meaning behind the let’s admit it, terribly obvious rhyme. 

And it only took another few minutes, in which their masked stalker was already more than halfway up the cliff.

The woman rolled her eyes and took out a knife, making the Claptrap backpedal and start screaming about wanting to live, etc., but she only went to the rope and cut it.

“... Right, taking the initiative, good minion! I would have done it myself, but I had other things to do.” It stated and Rhys rolled his eyes discreetly. Whoever did the programming of that AI, was one twisted moron.

Somewhere else a certain Emperor and his pre-teen daughter had a sudden unexplainable case of a very itchy and ringing left ear. It left the medical staff of the Imperial Palace stumped.

Meanwhile, Rhys once again had to tune out the crowing of the robot and looked at the psycho who was on his stomach leaning down with almost all of his upper body and the siren standing next to him. 

He never really put together the tattoos and the powers with the mysterious siren beings, but he finally got the connection between the name and those characteristics. 

Angel was a siren too, he realized and wondered how that would work out with the bounty on sirens. Like, what was the stance of Hyperion on them? Did they do experiments on them or were those just rumors that bandits whispered around their campfires, whenever a woman with incredible and physics-defying powers turned up around Pandora somewhere.

So those were sirens, it seemed, and sirens actually had a capture on sight order on them. He didn’t know how would that even work, capturing them, like there was a rumor about a lady just straight up summoning giant fists from the ground and knocking people up. And Rhys never figured out if that was a euphemism or not and whether there really was a woman who got people pregnant left and right, while magically fisting them or not.

Or there was a lady who could turn invisible and made these explosions, which murdered people to death. Less of a wonder, but still pretty inexplicable, if one wasn’t a total skeptic and tried to say that technology was so advanced, that it was pretty obvious that she could have a prototype cloaking device and some awesome explosives hidden on her. 

But those were the boring people, and Pandora was no place for a skeptic!

However, Rhys had the sudden urge to never wear any clothing that revealed even a hint of skin and worried about his future regarding his impending marriage.

If he actually lived till the marriage.

Which was debatable, because he missed most of the ongoing conversation before him and he got knocked out once again. If anything else, he had started on the path to claim the title of “Most Head-Traumas in 24-hours”.

Then the woman lifted him up and set off with the annoying little robot somewhere, while Krieg stayed to deal with their follower.

“I LOVE to wait for my meals!”

No answer came forth from the figure in black.

“Look at me, when I scream at your soul, my stomach is empty and my mind is full of gore, but you are so slooooooooooooooooooooooooooow!”

The figure in black turned their head up and a :D showed up in red hovering over it.

“Skittering, running, climbing, that’s all you do all day and night, just scampering around with those sticks you call legs, an itsy-bitsy spider just waiting to be smashed under a swatter, why won’t you hurry up?!”

The figure seemed to consider the drop behind them and the way forward before they shrugged and leaped up onto the cliff in one jump.

“You should be scared, I need to release some stress, you are in the way.”

The psycho smiled at them, the bloodthirsty grin not actually showing through the mask, but the other masked man got the general gist.

“It speaks! You shouldn’t make any noise now, stay quiet, OR YOU'RE DEAD! MEAT, DEAD, MEAT! NOW AND FOREVER!!” Krieg shouted, then it was on, without further warning, ax against katana, the sparks flying when the dark blue metal met the white bone.

“Nice try you psycho, I don’t die so easily, I’m always ready.”

“The voice told me, you are a scary one, but everything bleeds and dies!” Was the only answering scream from the psycho in question.

There wasn’t even a millisecond of hesitation, and the katana once again was against the ax, sparks flying between the two opposing forces.

“You are a strong one.” Came the deep voice, with a hint of respect hiding under it. The figure in black leaped back and changed their grip on the hilt. “Your ax sings with purpose.”

Krieg leaped out of the way for the first time, but the other figure was faster than him and they were already behind him, with the katana held across his throat, not drawing blood yet.

“But ** I am ** faster.”

There was a tap against the edge before the ax was dropped and the psycho started to kneel down at the behest of the sword on his pulse.

“You are a psycho, but you do make sense a bit, what is up with that?” 

Krieg looked at the blade that was against his neck a few seconds ago, then sized up the figure wielding it once again, who kicked away the other weapon into a nearby snow pile.

“Nothingness!”

“I stand here and wait, I’m not really that patient, speak or you are dead.”

It seemed like those words it didn’t mean anything to the psycho at first, but as soon as the masked figure geared up to actually swing the katana, he started visibly showing signs of some kind of struggle.

So, they were waiting once again, with the katana laid against his throat.

“(Stop.) STOP TALKING, BRAIN GHOST, STOP!!! (Tell them what happened.) GET OUT OF MY BRAIN! (Tell them.) NO-NO-NO, NOT CARING NO ONE CARES, NOTHING HAPPENED EVER! (If you don’t tell them, I will. You will ** not ** stop our vengeance.)”

The masked figure knocked their head to the side, a red question mark hovering over them.

Those were two voices. 

Using the same body parts to produce a sound, so they were similar, but they were very much different in diction, volume, and tone. Beside the psycho’s usual voice, the other one was much clearer, even if there was a strange echoing under it. 

It was almost quiet compared to the first voice, but there was no misunderstanding over which personality was the more dangerous one. 

Of course, the psycho could plan too, but they were prone to going berserk and all reason went out the door then. The second voice? 

The masked man felt it was vaguely familiar and he knew that it contained much more cold calculation. Whoever was the second personality, it was a cold-blooded killer through and through, they were sure of that.

“Someone open me up, and pull the brain ghost from my head, twisting and turning, coiling and twining, brain matter, get it out, GET IT OUT! (YOU WILL TELL THEM.) NOT THE PAIN, THE BURNING HURT IN MY BRAIN, NOT THAT, DON’T WANT THE PAIN TO START AGAIN! (TELL THEM ABOUT THE COUNT!) NO, NO, NO, SIX FINGERS AND FOUR FINGERS REACHING INTO MY BODY AND GRABBING AND TWISTING AND THE KNIFE BURNS, I WANNA LIVE, WANNA LIVE, WANNA LIVE!!!”

The katana lowered and the psycho crumbled to the ground, swinging back and forth clutching their head and screaming, then muttering.

The figure in black looked down at him before they stepped behind him and struck his head, causing the psycho to slump forward, finally unconscious.

“(I’ll have my vengeance.)”

~~~

The siren still could hear Krieg’s screaming when suddenly everything went quiet. She stopped and turned around, causing the young man she was floating along in stasis, to come to a halt too. The Claptrap at the front continued on before it realized that no one was following or listening to it anymore.

Not that the siren actually listened to the rambling, she started ignoring it on Day One of their unfortunate hiring by the robot. 

With every whine and insult and complaint, she felt her soul shrivel up with the utter annoyance she could only feel in response.

Krieg sometimes started screaming when the robot got too annoying, knowing and enjoying that the yelling psycho scared the shit out of it.

Those were some minutes of blessed silence, but the robot always realized eventually that they wouldn’t kill their employer.

They haven’t got paid yet aside from the small starting incentive.

At this point, she was contemplating just crushing the Claptrap in spite of that.

But Krieg went silent which was way more important and she was a bit concerned about what it meant.

“Hellooo, we need to go. Put one wheel in front of the other, minion, get to that walking thing!” It nagged at her and she didn’t even look at it.

“We are not your minions.” She told it absently still watching the horizon for movement. It was a relatively flat surface, everything covered in white so the black armor would be eye-catching even over a larger distance. “Krieg was defeated.”

That stopped the Claptrap mid-rant over why they were its minions and the superiority of AI over fleshy organics.

“Inconceivable!” It shouted again and again as it rolled around in circles.

The woman rubbed her temple before her tattoos flashed and Rhys dropped to the ground and the robot stopped its circling.

“You keep using that word. It doesn’t mean what you think it means.” She told it as she lifted the stasis suddenly, causing the Claptrap to fall over. She turned toward the robot and knelt down to flip back the struggling Claptrap on its wheel. Rhys sat up in a slight daze, the snow melting on him and soaking through his clothes in a matter of seconds. 

“Go, when I’m finished, I’ll catch up to you.”

And with that Rhys was pulled up too. The woman stood before him and he finally noticed that she was shorter than him, despite the larger than life and intimidating presence she had most of the time. 

“You are going to behave, or I’ll put you in stasis and drop you off a cliff. Was I clear?” She asked as she finished tying another length of rope around his neck and at his nod she gave the other end of it to the robot, who almost immediately started wheeling away hurriedly, making Rhys have to jog half hunched because the rope wasn’t that long.

The siren turned her back to them and swept away the snow from a few bumps until she found a rock where she sat down and started meditating.

She didn’t have too much time between their departure and before she could see a black speck on the horizon.

She opened her eyes and looked up at the black figure coming closer. There was only silence between them, facing off in the icy landscape.

The figure in black stopped a few steps from her and she stood up. Both of them sized the other up before she spoke up. 

She had only one question in her mind, her tattoos lighting up in preparation.

“Is Krieg still alive?”

Cocking their head to the side, the masked figure unsheathed their katana, watching her for a few seconds.

“He is.” He answered with an inclined head.

The siren nodded, her tattoos dulling back to their original blue color and she quickly crossed over the last few feet, to stand at his side and look them up right in their mask.

“If he is dead, I’ll find you and you will die.” The siren told them and started walking back following their footsteps in the snow.

There was a slight pause before the mask turned toward her and she heard a deep voice calling out to her. “Not attacking me, if you let me leave like this, the robot is scrap?”

She waved a hand, didn’t turn around, just continued on her way.

“No amount of money is worth it to go toe to toe with the Assassin of the Vault Hunters.”

And with that, she disappeared on the horizon and the masked figure followed the wheel tracks.

While this little interlude went on between siren and assassin, Rhys did some thinking and decided to not heed the woman’s ‘advice’ and just went for it.

They didn’t take his mechanical arm and that little puppy actually had some surprises hidden in there courtesy of the greatest engineers of Hyperion. Gone were the days when his parents could only afford a dingy prosthetic that only worked for the most basic tasks.

So he sliced through the rope, accidentally cutting himself slightly on his wrists and then he cut through the rope connecting him to the rushing Claptrap. The loss of the resistance overbalanced the robot a bit, swinging it out even faster for a few meters before it realized that it shouldn’t be possible with its reluctant prisoner running obediently behind it.

It turned around, still holding the cut rope in one of its limbs and Rhys finally straightened out from his hunch and rubbed his aching wrist when his robotic fingers lost their sharp edges.

“Hey! You shouldn’t have done that!” It shouted at him and he shrugged in response.

Now that they were out of the psycho’s and the siren’s clutches he figured that he had his chance to escape. And if their pursuer caught up to them and he wasn’t the target - God he hoped he wasn’t the target - then he would rather not be caught with the robot.

If he died, he wanted to die absolutely away from the Claptrap’s entire Claptrap-ness.

“Hey! Where are you going? You are not allowed to leave, you are kidnapped, you, you… you fleshbag!”

And Rhys stopped for a few seconds, massaging his cold muscles a bit before he started jogging away, the robot at his back screaming at him to come back.

Then it seemed to remember that it had a wheel which worked in snow and sped toward Rhys and barreled into his legs, hugging him around his thighs and not letting go, wailing at him not to be left alone, that it still needed to take Rhys to an Extraction Zone, so he could be murdered and a war could be started.

Rhys pushed himself up from the snow and turned around and tried to pry off the robot unsuccessfully.

And that was the picture their pursuer saw when they caught up with them.

Rhys would have been embarrassed if he didn’t feel his bones creak at the increasingly tighter and tighter hold. The Claptrap turned partially around to see the masked figure behind them.

“Fuck off, we are in the middle of something.”

And Rhys got ready to just slice and dice the annoying robot when he heard those ambiguous words and just looked at it for a second feeling violated all of a sudden. 

No. Just no.

The masked figure was standing there motionless a red ‘...’ hovering over their head.

Claptrap latched onto Rhys even harder as the human tried to crawl away from it, even going as far to kick his legs in hope that it would dislodge the nuisance.

“Are you deaf, get lost, or I’ll make you!” The Claptrap shouted at the figure as it continued its struggle with his unwilling captive who started to fight dirty by then.

The somewhat ignored assassin stared at the two at a loss of what to do, before it took a few strides forward and grabbed the Claptrap by its head and tossed it far away. 

Rhys laid down on the ground his hair wet and out of its careful coif and stared at the hand offered to him by the masked figure.

He accepted it with some hesitation, then with a pang he realized that there were only four fingers on it. He was heaved up like he weighed nothing and he looked up at the mask, searching for something he didn’t even know what it was.

Four fingers. A mask. He hoped, oh God, he hoped so much. But Zer0 wasn’t so tall, and their shoulders weren’t so broad… and they were dead.

Rhys turned away to mask his pain, to not have to see the figure before him, because the more he was looking at them, the more he was afraid that he would start crying.

And he would rather die than start crying before a Vault Hunter, a Vault Hunter who was responsible for the murder of Zer0.

“You! YOU!” And that was the Claptrap back again. The normally blue headlight was once again an angry red and the robot seemed to stutter in its rage. “YOU CAN GET CRUSHED UNDER MY WHEELS!”

The masked man didn’t say anything, just a hologram flickered over their head spelling out their answer.

‘NO’

Then they just shot the robot.

Rhys flinched back at the sudden movement, the spray of the oil in the air, black blots dotting the snow.

The Claptrap quickly sprung up, like a bad jack-in-the-box, already crowing.

“You can’t just kill a robot with one measly shot! We are all metal, we don’t bleed out, we are bulletproof!”

“Boom.”The masked figure turned toward it, sniper rifle in one hand pointing at the robot and they just said that. They didn’t actually fire a second bullet.

A second passed, then two.

“Hah, there are two truths everyone knows, never fight a land war on Elpis and you never shoot a Claptrap with…”

And Rhys never heard the end of that sentence, because the robots entire upper part exploded.

“That’s unfortunate, you should have dodged instead... explosive ammo.” They wiggled the clip at the smoking remains.

And that’s how Rhys and the masked figure came to stand alone in the middle of the Frozen Wastes.

~~~

Rhys took two steps back from the masked figure, shivering in the icy wind. His clothes were quickly freezing in some places and he knew that if he survived this, he would have a nasty cold.

If he survived it.

He knew that his chances were rather bad, as the Vault Hunters stood against Hyperion. And a bunch of other things, like they stood against Atlas too.

And that kingdom had its central seat in Promethea.

Which was now Rhys’ Principality.

Yeah, he felt like he got from out of the firepan and ended up in the fire itself.

He grabbed the tape across his mouth and ripped it off in one move. It wasn’t that painful, he worked a bit on unsticking the adhesive already. 

“So now what? Are you going to kill me?” He asked from the Vault Hunter.

No answer, he got nothing out of them, not even an emoticon.

What if they didn’t know who he was? Like, he didn’t remember either of his kidnappers call him on his name, or his title, though the psycho or the siren might have dropped something when they were alone with the Vault Hunter.

“Am I… still kidnapped? Am I free to go?” He tried again but received no answer.

A minute of complete silence between the two and Rhys stood there waiting, watching the Vault Hunter who went to poke the robot’s innards a little bit.

They pushed one of the plates and a wad of money fell out, which they pocketed.

“Oookay. Then you won’t mind if I just… leave. Thanks for the rescue, don’t-follow-me, bye!” He rushed out and started power walking across the plateau. There should be a fast travel station in that icy hellhole.

Eventually, he realized that he wasn’t alone and that he had a tall black-clad shadow.

Rhys sped up, his follower sped up too.

He slowed down, they slowed down too.

He stopped and turned around to look at the masked figure.

“Are you following me?”

The figure nodded.

“Why?”

“You are here alone, not so fast Your Majesty, I will follow you.”

Rhys felt cold in his bones and this time it wasn’t because of the temperature of the Frozen Wastes. His last hopes were dashed, the Vault Hunter knew who he was.

He wanted to deny it, but one look at them with the sniper rifle still in their hand and he thought better.

There was no way he could bullshit his way out of that.

And if he was correct in thinking, especially after seeing that gun, he was sure that the Vault Hunter before him was the Assassin.

Of course, they could be another one of them, maybe the Soldier, but they had a different kind of signature weapon. Blades and sniper rifles were the Assassin’s tools of the trade.

“So what? What do you want from me?” Rhys thought about it for a second before he continued. “No, what do you want from Jack? Money, power?”

The masked figure holstered their sniper rifle on their back and took out a sword. Rhys felt a tiny bit relieved when he saw the clean edge, but he knew that it didn’t mean anything, it could have been easily cleaned off with a rag previously. 

Also, it set off alarm bells in his head, to have a sharp blade out… did that mean that the figure wanted to use it on him?

“I’m warning you, Jack will find me anywhere in the galaxy, there is no place you can hide.” He didn’t know if that was a good idea, but it was kind of a last-ditch plan for him.

The figure laughed and Rhys noted that they actually had a nice voice. Deep, kind of cool.

“Since when was he Jack, one does wonder about that, to a country boy?”

Rhys furrowed his eyebrows at that. The Vault Hunter was rather well informed, Jack and the Imperial Court did a lot of work to rework some of his background. 

It could be just a shot in the dark, but he had to wonder.

“Since this country boy is marrying him.” He snapped.

The figure flinched and Rhys felt a bit suspicious. What was going on? Was the Vault Hunter pining for the Emperor of Hyperion? Were they in love with Jack, but bound to be on opposing sides and he was an innocent bystander in all this, unknowingly becoming the ‘love’ rival of them? 

If that was the case he would rather be on a totally different planet, maybe somewhere where the people never heard of Hyperion or the Vault Hunters.

If there even existed a place like that.

There was probably something like that, right?

“You actually... believe that he would save you, would risk his own skin?” The figure asked, voice mocking. Rhys didn’t even need to look up at the hologram to know that it displayed a laughing emoticon.

“He would.” Rhys remembered the deal they made, him and Jack, so there was no hesitation in his answer.

“Such love is so nice, do you only love his money, or the power too?” Came the retort almost immediately.

“Both.” Rhys’ eyes narrowed in annoyance. “I swore not to love anyone ever again. But money and power are not people.”

There was something about the figure that went under his skin, that made him so angry that he forgot that he was standing before a murderer.

“You would admit that? You do not love him and yet, you are marrying!”

Something about the tone made Rhys’ hackles raise. The two of them squared up against each other and Rhys completely forgot that he was standing before someone who could kill him in at least 6 ways with a spoon.

“We are. He knows that I don’t love him, not that any of that is your business, Vault Hunter.” He bit out watching the almost invisible tensing of the masked figure.

“You are not capable to love anyone, you mean.” The Vault Hunter retorted. “Just an unfeeling wretch from nothing.”

“I loved once already and it left me wishing for death. You do not know me, Vault Hunter.” He snarled right up into their mask; one hand fisted in the black armor. “And what do you know of love, you murderer? Or is your heart just an empty, black hole… Do you even have one?” He asked mocking.

“Ouch, that would have hurt if I gave a fuck about the opinion of a heartless wretch.” The masked figure started prying off Rhys’s fingers one by one from their armor and leant down to him a bit. “I do know you, Your Highness. What was it? Four, maybe five years ago, that a poor farmhand chanced on us on a train?”

Rhys heard nothing and felt nothing aside from the spreading numbness.

“And they spoke of their sweetheart, for whom they wanted to live, a young man named Rhys Strongfork… do you even remember that poor farmhand, Your Majesty?”

And Rhys? Rhys remembered that day suddenly, all the painful details he tried so hard to forget, the anger, the despair, the disbelief, everything he felt when he learned that Zer0 was dead.

Dead and gone, never to return to him.

And here there was one who was responsible for their murder, making fun of him and just being all snide and righteous?

“Who are you to judge me?! Go rot in hell for all I care!” And then he stopped thinking and reacted, his mechanical arm lashing out already, catching the Vault Hunter in surprise and launching them away a few meters.

“AS YOU WISH!” Came a shout while they flew.

Rhys stood there, one arm still out-stretched, staring for a few seconds, before he swallowed.

All the similarities, the knowledge they shouldn’t have, the emotions he saw and dismissed… 

“Zer0?” He asked shallow, before he scrambled to the fallen form, slipping on the iced over snow and skidding down hard on his knees to lean over them.

Their chest was still moving, their heart still beating.

With a trembling hand he reached out and skimmed the mask, before he asked.

“Can I…?” And he got a nod.

When the mask was removed, he looked at them for the first time in 5 years and they stared at each other, just drinking the other in.

“I can work with that.” Rhys said and leaned down.

“Can I kiss you?” Another nod.

So he did.

~~~

After several tearful kisses and rolling around in the snow, Zer0 felt Rhys shivering in their arms and realized that his clothes were completely soaked through.

The cold didn’t bother them so much, but Rhys was a bit more delicate in that regard even when he was younger.

They gathered their fallen equipment and weapons, then they walked side by side. At first, holding each-other’s hands not wanting to let go, but Rhys got too cold and couldn’t really go on walking anymore.

Hypothermia was a bitch.

So Zer0 gathered Rhys up in their arms and that was how they finished the last few kilometers to the nearest Fast Travel Station in a run.

Thankfully Zer0 had a map, because when Rhys first started storming off, he started out in the wrong direction.

They agreed to go to Sanctuary first, but something happened to the station. Maybe it was too exposed to the harsh weather or seasonal changes, but it glitched. And that’s how the two of them found themselves in the Caustic Caverns instead. 

Any attempts in working with the Fast Travel System failed at that point, the station in the caverns just beeped with a red light before it went dark. 

Rhys watched the Vault Hunter try to get it back to life, but nothing worked and he quickly figured out one of the issues. 

Something chewed on the power cables and it finally died after one last digistruction, theirs.

“At least it finished the digistruct. It could have been worse; we could be missing limbs.” Rhys shrugged from one lichen-covered boulder he sat down on.

It was warm in the caverns the air full of something that stank of Sulphur and other chemicals.

Once upon a time, Dahl tried to overtake Pandora for its mineral resources. 

The planet chewed on them and spat them out like every other subjugator who came before.

But they left behind most of their mining operations and gear and everything when civil war broke out on their home planet. 

Then either the locals moved in, or the local fauna, or the local flora moved in, or any combination of the three and boom, they had sites like the Caustic Caverns.

Point was, these places usually had another Fast Travel Station closer to the main building of the mining operation and if it didn’t work then, they could still find a Catch-A-Ride.

“So, where do we go? The air feels strange, I don’t think it's good to stay too long here.” Rhys fret and tried to stand up, but he was still a bit shaky. He ripped the lining of his suit jacket, and covered his mouth with it.

“Hush you need to rest, I will take care of these things, we will be okay.” Zer0 nuzzled into him when they leaned down to pick him up. Their mask sealed with a hiss, and they started walking once again.

Not jogging, because the ground didn’t exactly look stable and there were places which looked okay, but a bubble would form on the surface. Essentially the ground was saturated in acid so much that it almost looked like proper dirt packed ground. It was just a bit more liquidy.

Liquidy enough to sink into if one steps on it.

“So, what happened?” Rhys asked, forehead against Zer0’s padded neck.

They hummed before they started answering. 

“Train got derailed, Vault Hunters captured us all, some people died then.” 

The story rolled out that way. “Others were taken, I tried killing one of them, called the Assassin. He tortured me, mostly by training a lot, every day and night.”

“The stranger thing was, he would always tell me this, I will kill you soon.” They looked down at Rhys, watching him cough a bit, his throat getting irritated by the noxious fumes. If they could they would give him their mask, but it was very much molded to their head.

“I will kill you soon, you need to train harder kid, eat your vegetables.”

“I will kill you soon, shoot that bottle five times more, you need to drink more.”

“I will kill you soon, every sentence had that part, when he spoke to me.”

“One day he called me, telling me that Vault Hunters train their successors. Like he trained me, the previous Assassin, had done the same thing to him. All the Vault Hunters, are not the originals, but trained new recruits.”

Rhys looked up at them a bit disbelievingly, but it actually explained how the Vault Hunters could be still at large when it had been decades since their first appearances.

Zer0 nodded at seeing the dawning comprehension.

Also, Rhys didn’t seem to notice that his fingers moved around a lot, but Zer0 was amused by it nevertheless.

“I believe he was, the second generation, Assassin maybe? He didn’t speak a lot, you wouldn't have liked him at all, he was an asshole.”

Rhys smiled at that and the Vault Hunter stumbled a bit. That made Rhys smirk a bit and Zer0 continued hastily.

“Then I took over, as the Assassin one day, and he retired.” They did jazz fingers like they wanted to show that there they were and waited for Rhys’ reaction.

He blinked up at them, counting on his fingers, before he started a bit hesitant.

“Is the haiku an Assassin thing too?”

There was a ‘:(‘ emoticon displayed, before Zer0 answered that question.

“I liked it that’s all, it’s not an Assassin thing, I get bored sometimes.”

Rhys shrugged and hugged Zer0’s neck tighter.

“So why didn’t you send a message or something? Don’t worry, I’m alive and all that? It was 5 years. 5 years where I thought you were dead.”

The Vault Hunter walked and deftly dispatched a few threshers popping up too close to them.

“By the time I could, you left Pandora behind, the sisters told me.”

Rhys raised his head, a scowl forming on him.

“What? What sisters? Fiona and Sasha? And they never told me that you were alive?!”

The Assassin rubbed his back to calm him down and Rhys eventually did.

“I grew up a bit, had the mask and the armor, they did not know me.”

“And I was already off-planet…”

The Vault Hunter looked at him and made a decision.

“If you want, if you still love me, we can leave it all behind. Just you and me together.”

Rhys smiled up at them and pressed a small kiss to their mask.

“Good, I’ll never let you leave without me ever again.”

There was a blushing emoticon overhead and the two of them stared dopily at the other. Or at least Rhys stared dopily at Zer0 and Zer0 did too, but their expression couldn’t be actually seen. 

Then they were interrupted when Rhys coughed again, Zer0 massaging his back gently.

“So… we are in the Caustic Caverns. Do you think Crystalisks are real?”

The Assassin hummed, before they shook their head.

“Probably not. Someone would have posted a clearer photo of them on the ECHOnet if they were real. So might be something the Dahl made up to scare away looters.”

And as soon as they finished saying that they had to dodge a projectile made of crystals. Rhys looked over Zer0’s shoulders at it, then it exploded and Rhys turned to look where it came from.

At first there was nothing he could see, but Zer0 shifted his weight around to one arm and the other took out their katana. 

Then even Rhys could see the large creature stepping out of the darkness, the light fracturing on its crystalline skin. 

Some part of the creature reminded Rhys of Jack’s diamond horse. But Buttstallion was actually manmade, a one-of-a-kind engineering wonder, while Crystalisks were clearly something less of a laboratory experiment and more of an evolutionary thing.

The animal before them fit Pandora down to a T. It didn’t look out of place to the other wildlife.

Maybe a bit more isolated and mutated to survive in harsh conditions, but perfectly normal.

Also, a bit angry at the interlopers - it tried to smash the two, but Zer0 was too fast for it. 

Which made it angrier, then Zer0’s sword glanced of its crystals a few times and that made it even more angrier, its rage showing in the increasing bombardment of sharp crystal projectiles at them.

“We are not hurting it.” Rhys stated while Zer0 jumped over a boulder. “I think it’s getting bigger.”

The Assassin nodded shortly, then jumped away from another exploding crystal.

“It planted itself in the ground and the crystals are growing larger.”

Rhys watched another crystal form before it was launched at them, Zer0 smoothly side-stepping it.

“This is getting nowhere. Can we just, I don’t know slip by it or something?” He asked, eyeing the corridor that was blocked by its body.

“I do not retreat, not while I still have ammo, I am a badass.”

Rhys scowled up at the Vault Hunter, who was intent on actually killing the thing. So, Rhys got both of his arms around their neck to snarl into their mask the following:

“If you do not drag your little butt away ASAP, you are relegated to the couch forever, my dear sweet Zer0.”

“But. But!” And Rhys could hear the pout somehow. Zer0 looked down at Rhys to be hit by an especially annoyed look.

It was still pretty harmless looking, because Rhys’ face was generally harmless looking, but the threat felt real. With another pout, they sheathed their blade and started looking at ways to get around the Crystalisk.

Oddly enough, it seemed to calm down once the katana was gone and they came to a stand-still.

It still watched them carefully, they watched it carefully too, but neither moved. Rhys coughed a bit again and felt Zer0’s hands tighten slightly on him. They were starting to get worried about what the air was doing to Rhys’ internal organs, breathing it in and being exposed to it obviously had some effect already on him.

They slowly moved toward the Crystalisk, keeping to the wall and the Crystalisk moved to the other side keeping its distance. In the end they managed to change positions completely and Zer0 and Rhys could continue down the tunnel walking backwards until the Crystalisk was completely out of sight.

Rhys breathed out slowly and pressed another small kiss to the mask, getting an answering heart from them.

They were a bit safer and eventually reached a giant building that still stood relatively unharmed. 

They spent some time there, scavenging for some non-expired food and a safe place to sleep for a few hours. Or at least Rhys slept a bit and Zer0 sat down for a while. 

Day Two, or whatever time they had been in those caverns, passed largely in the same manner. They actually realized that Crystalisks weren’t inherently hostile to them - they only attacked if they felt like they were in danger. After that realization they kept their distance and Zer0 didn’t draw either of their weapons.

On Day Three they finally found a working Fast Travel Station. 

Zer0 choose the Sanctuary once again and they were deconstructed and reconstructed. 

Right into Lynchwood instead.

~~~

At first, Rhys didn’t realize that the glitch wasn’t a random glitch at all.

The Fast Travel Stations were old Dahl constructions.

When they lost their intergalactic presence due to the economic and social collapse of their home planet, Hyperion picked up producing those things.

They were strewn around quite a few planets since then.

So, it wasn’t unimaginable, that the stations recognized _ Rhys _ and didn’t let him travel into specific places. 

Like a Vault Hunter sympathizer town, Sanctuary for example.

He might have something in his cybernetic arm to prevent access for example, goodness knows what Hyperion put in it actually.

He shared his theory with Zer0, who seemed deep in thought, before deciding to try it one last time.

They ended up in the Highlands.

Something in the stations, probably an AI, sent them to Hyperion-related places instead. The first two Fast Travel stations in the Frozen Wastes and the Caustic Caverns were obviously of the older Dahl stock, but the other two they tried looked newer, less dingy and dirty.

Those were Hyperion-made.

“I think… I think that Jack already knows we are here. Whatever is up with the stations, it’s connected to Hyperion and it’s connected to me.”

Rhys stood on the edge of a cliff, overlooking the Highlands and saw the skyscrapers of Opportunity gleam in the distance. He turned to look at Zer0 with a sad smile.

“I told you he would find me anywhere.”

Zer0 crossed the distance and reeled Rhys in into a hug, their chin resting on his head.

“We find Overlook, get some clothes and gear to go, then we find a ride.”

They swayed a bit, before they grabbed Rhys’s chin to tilt it up and press their foreheads together. Or at least Rhys thought that was where Zer0’s forehead might have been in the mask.

“But we would need to digistruct one? Wouldn’t that bring Hyperion down on us quicker?” He asked unsure. When he was a kid, they never used vehicles other than their own, and when he got to meet Jack, he only ever used vehicles provided by Hyperion.

However, he knew that there weren’t many vehicles on Pandora which weren’t either too old, broken, dead or guarded very heavily. Aside from the digistructed ones. So Zer0 probably meant those when they talked about getting a ride.

But digistructed cars, they came from Catch-A-Rides or a Hyperion Constructor. He wasn’t quite sure if the Catch-A-Ride thing would be safer. 

Zer0 shook their head. “Scooter is not exactly a fan of Hyperion.” 

Rhys blinked up at them before he asked a question that wasn’t actually asked before only implied.

“Do I count as Hyperion too? Because I am engaged to Jack and everyone knows that who has access to the ECHOnet.”

“You are not Hyperion and you are never going to be Hyperion, if you don’t want to be. Nobody will hurt you for that, I guarantee you that. I will destroy anyone who tries to hurt you.” Zer0’s answer was almost immediate, a vehement and violent promise, which actually calmed some of Rhys’ fears.

“And me getting a disguise would help too, if I was less recognizable.”

Zer0 looked him up and down and they cocked their head to the side.

“The suit actually rather… suits you. It has a certain Hyperion style though.”

Rhys snorted and rubbed their face into the Zer0’s neck. That part was a bit softer, more flexible, than the chest plate they wore.

“At least it’s not yellow.”

“That’s true.”

“It could be yellow, that’s all I’m saying.”

They got into the small town and got the stuff they needed. Or at least Zer0 got the two of them the stuff they needed while Rhys waited in an alley, hiding in the shadows.

They returned quickly, not wanting to leave Rhys out there, alone, pretty much defenseless.

Rhys dropped his suit jacket and stained white shirt into a nearby trash can, then wore the layers Zer0 handed them one by one. There was some armor thrown in there too, lightweight and he covered it all up with a cloak, hood on and a mask made of cloth covering half of his face. He looked a bit strange next to Zer0’s all black ensemble, but between the two of them, he was the one actually looking like he knew the climate they were going into.

Deserts and dark clothing didn’t really mix, but Zer0 didn’t have to worry about that, like with the cold, the heat didn’t bother them either too much.

They left the town and found one of the nearest Catch-A-Ride stations and Zer0 managed to digistruct an Outrunner after a small argument between them whether they needed a Bandit Technical or not. Rhys thought it was overkill, Zer0 thought it would be safer, Rhys reminded them that an Outrunner was faster.

So Zer0 ended up in the mounted turret, while Rhys drove. 

At first, they saw the Hyperion contingent at one of the crossroads and avoided it almost immediately, then they found some of the ways out of the Highlands were blocked too.

Yes, Handsome Jack knew exactly that Rhys was in the Highlands somewhere, Zer0 thought.

Rhys wanted to bite his nails, though he grew out of that habit at the insistence of his mother by the time he was 8 or 9.

“We should have grabbed the Technical, that would have broken through the blockade easily.” Rhys mused, while they watched the Soldiers check on a passing caravan.

“We will need a distraction, then we could slip through.” Zer0 stated. They were looking around the area, flickering in and out of sight with their cloaking activating and deactivating.

If they remembered correctly, there were some stalker nests in the Highlands. If they could get them to attack the Hyperion Soldiers, they could get out of the Highlands in the confusion.

So, they told Rhys the plan. 

Told him to wait behind a large boulder which hid the Outrunner from the Hyperions, but allowed them a somewhat clear shot to the entrance if their plan succeeded. They got a good-luck kiss from Rhys and cloaked once again to go anger the local wildlife.

It was surprisingly easy actually and they managed to turn the attention of some Badass Stalkers too onto the Hyperion grunts. They didn’t even know what hit them and Zer0 sprinted back to Rhys to tell them that they could floor it.

It would have been a complete success if there weren’t some stalkers who went for their Outrunner instead, destroying it quickly. 

If a moment later several Loaderbots didn't land nearby.

Once the fight died down with the animals, they were looking down the barrel of several Hyperion guns. Zer0 brought Rhys behind them and had both their katana and sniper rifle out and ready. 

Rhys pressed his forehead into their back and held onto their waist.

And that was when Handsome Jack arrived.

~~~

“Cupcake, maybe stop hiding behind that dirty bandit and come to daddy?” That was the first thing out of his future husband’s mouth.

Rhys didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

“Hi Jack, how are you? I’m quite comfortable here myself.” He didn’t move and his answer was slightly muffled by Zer0’s armor.

“Cute, Cupcake. Step away from the bandit, I’m not going to repeat myself.” 

Rhys tensed up and snuck a look around. Too many weapons already on them, too many Loaderbots and too many Constructors around. And he would bet that there were many more of them cloaked. 

They couldn’t get away, Zer0 would die and he would live out his life knowing that he could have saved them.

“Promise me, that you will let them go.” He whispered before he stepped away from the protection of Zer0’s back to stand before them. He swallowed the lump in his throat and shouted out loud. “PROMISE ME, THAT YOU WILL LET THEM GO.”

He could see Jack stop a few steps away from them, a bit startled before it transformed into contemplation. At least it wasn't a murderous rage, but calculating Jack was never the easiest to deal with either. But he could be reasoned with at least when he was like that.

“And why would I do that, Cupcake?” He asked with a growing smirk. “We already have a deal. What do I gain if I let them go just because you asked?”

Rhys swallowed, he hoped he could get Jack to accept, but what did he expect?

They were barely friends, as much as Jack could even have friends. Their marriage was a business contract and the deals were already negotiated; it wouldn’t make sense for one of them to ask for anything else without offering something else.

And Jack held all the cards there, them surrounded by his troops. 

Even if Rhys said something like ‘I’ll make our marriage a nightmare.’ or anything like that it wouldn’t matter.

He had to think fast, and there was only one thing that came to his mind, when it came down to it.

“In the Salt Flats on the East Coast there is a cave system.” He started out. “At the end of the Descent, there is an entrance and it leads to a Vault.” He eyed the Emperor before them and felt Zer0 tense up behind him. “And I would bet everything on it that Hyperion Empire would like to get into a Vault… especially since Atlas was way ahead of you in that regard.”

“So, there is a Vault on Pandora, but that’s nothing new. Still not hearing what that has to do with anything, though.” Handsome Jack stated, smirk still present, but Rhys could see the greed in him. 

“What if I said that it would open in a year and that I could get you in there?” Rhys shuddered to say that, but he had nothing else to make a deal with Jack. 

And ever since he stepped a foot on Promethea, he knew that the hum he felt in his bones with every step he had ever taken on Pandora was because of a Vault. 

He knew because Promethea had one open, and he felt how the presence of Eridium changed him the first time. 

Jack looked away first, before he nodded.

“You have a deal, Cupcake. But if you do not fulfill your end of the bargain, you will bear the consequences.” A slow smile spread over his face and he stretched out his arms. “Now come to Daddy.”

“You will swear not to harm them and to let them go?” Rhys asked before he took even a step. 

“I swear.” Jack said.

“Say it.” Rhys demanded, ignoring the way Zer0 was almost vibrating behind him and how the smile became fixed on Jack’s face.

“I swear that I will not harm your little Vault Hunter and that I will let them go. I will even promise to deliver them to Sanctuary, how does that sound? Happy now, Cupcake?”

And Rhys nodded and walked into Jack’s arms, looking back at Zer0 from the circle of Hyperion Guards around them, before he was bustled away without allowing him to even say goodbye.

And he didn’t hear when Jack turned to Wilhelm and told him to take Zer0 into custody.

Since when would a ruler need to do their own dirty work?

~~~

~~~


	3. Chapter 3

_“Do I love you? My God, if your love were a grain of sand, mine would be a universe of beaches.” _

_ **The Princess Bride by William Goldman** _

### Part Three of Three

In the next few hours and during the next few days, Rhys was pretty much smuggled back into Opportunity, then out of Pandora and onto Promethea under heavy guard and without anyone familiar around him. 

All of the staff who were with him on Pandora had been replaced by new people. 

Rhys sent Vaughn to Sasha and Fiona and hoped that the three of them would be able to work together and be happy together even if they could never see Rhys again.

Because at this point Rhys was quite sure that he would never be able to leave Jack’s side ever again after the wedding. The Emperor of Hyperion would not entertain having his recently kidnapped fiancé out of his sight or his immediate reach.

Promethea was a compromise of sorts. It was well within Jack’s immediate influence, quite far from Pandora, so Rhys was safe enough from any possible interruptions to his wedding preparations.

Rhys liked Promethea and he had no desire to prepare for his wedding, but he was duty-bound. 

And Promethea was almost as familiar to him at this point as Pandora was.

He was grounded in the old palace, which was one of the residences of the late ruler of the Atlas Empire, who died in there after a Hyperion ambush. Assassination. Whatever.

Sometimes Rhys fancied that he could still see the bloodstains in that royal chamber and he didn’t particularly like going into that wing. But during the few years he spent in that palace, he spent some time exploring around, and eventually boredom set in, so that part of the palace was eventually scouted by him too and he ended up knowing pretty much every part, every crack, and crevice of the old palace.

Jack liked to stay in the new Hyperion approved palace, but Rhys liked the old one better, even if it was gutted in technological terms compared to the newly built one. And not murder-free. 

It had a more homey feel to it, less gleaming metals and more secret corridors with cobwebs, old paintings, and actual physical books.

This way whenever he felt the Vault hum under his feet and it started to distract him, he could go deeper into the hidden parts of the palace, avoiding most guards who didn’t follow him too much around.

He still had those trackers inside himself and he wasn’t even sure he was angry or not that Jack chipped him two times pretty much without his consent or not. 

Zer0 was alive, so why would it matter that Jack chipped him like a pet skag?

Zer0 was alive and that realization made him happier than anything else in the last few years, 

And it broke him down into a miserable wreck too, because he was bound by contracts to Jack.

He wandered left and right around the majestic rooms aimlessly, just trying to deal with the volatile feelings inside.

He was angry at himself, at the world, at Jack… even at Zer0.

If he had stayed for a bit longer on Pandora, if Jack didn’t propose, if the farm’s economic collapse wasn’t hanging over his head like the Sword of Damocles ever since he could remember, if Zer0 showed up even a fraction earlier or sent some word that they were still alive…

If, if, if.

If wishes were poppies.

Maybe that was the reason why he failed to notice at first, that something was moved in the room he slept in, but he eventually stopped pacing across the room and stared at the wall which wasn’t at the exact same angle as before.

He pressed a few fingers against it, feeling the electrical hum running through it. 

It didn’t make sense. 

He knew that the palace was mapped from top to bottom and there was no way in hell that something like this was missed by Hyperion.

If it wasn’t deliberately concealed.

Atlas was technologically more advanced then Hyperion at first, as they opened a Vault first. 

It wasn’t… unimaginable to think that they could do something like that.

The whole wall flashed once, twice, before the hum stopped and he almost stepped away when a hole opened up.

He could see a staircase winding down and deeper and he hesitated at first remembering the way his parents died because of Atlassian technology, but his curiosity eventually won out and he followed it.

It was interesting to say, completely at odds with the palace’s style, more similar to the new Hyperion Palace then anything he had ever seen in the place.

It resembled the Atlas facility near the farm, but mostly in general air.

This place was more alien, rather than modern. 

The tattoos gave out a dull light, almost iridescent, but Rhys didn’t care too much. Jack already knew about them and he didn’t have to hide them anymore.

He must have walked for miles. His legs killed him in the high heels he rocked when he came to a dome-like structure, which lit up with each step he took inside it.

It was completely empty, save for a raised platform in the middle of it. He walked up and stood on it, staring down at the column rising out of it. He placed his palm on it, waited a few seconds but nothing happened.

Rhys took away his hand when the surface rippled under his fingertips and they sank into something malleable, his tattoos lighting up like a sky rocket exploding, before the whole dome plunged into darkness.

Rhys raised his cybernetic arm and the interface lit up, and he connected to the ECHOnet, datamining the previously closed-off system for whatever info he could get and it was more interesting than anything else he saw in the last few days.

Much more interesting.

So he spent the next few days going back whenever he could and trying to figure out what was going on with the place. At first, it seemed like an archive of some sort, but he quickly figured that wasn’t all of it or at least not completely.

And he could figure out a few uses for it maybe?

~~~

Meanwhile, Zer0 was placed into the tender care of Count Nakayama who was already salivating at having them as one of their specimens for some new experiments. Jack wanted them dead eventually, Nakayama knew that so he didn’t restrain himself.

And after some inhumanly painful weeks of enduring the most excruciating agonies, their suffering wasn’t over yet as Handsome Jack himself decided to visit them.

“I wanted to see you for myself. You know… you are a rather interesting guy, Zer0 was it?” He asked and didn’t wait for an answer. 

At this point he wouldn’t even get an answer even if he waited until the end of time - speech was one of the first things Nakayama took care to get rid of. So Zer0 could only glare at the man who was marrying their love.

“Rhysie doesn’t talk about you, not to me, but sometimes he would tell Angel stories… And do you know how funny is it to have a bona-fide Siren tell my child stories? A Siren of all things what are the odds of that happening.” 

Jack was watching them with the intensity of a bloodwing, enjoying their slight flinch.

“Does that actually hurt? To know that you are going to die here, while he will live for a bit longer?” Another flinch, barely detectable. Might have even been from the pain as Jack was digging into a rather painful part of them. “I won, Vault Hunter. I have your little love, I have your life, I will have a Vault and you are dead, your body just doesn’t know it yet.”

Zer0 could have got sick from the satisfaction radiating from the man standing over their strapped down body. 

“Hm. Saying that out loud actually doesn’t give me any satisfaction, you are nothing but a beaten dog. Goodbye, Vault Hunter, you will see your love soon, don’t worry.” 

And one shot rang out and there was only dead silence left behind when Jack slammed the door to the lab.

“Dump them near Sanctuary.” He barked at the Count before he stormed out of the laboratory. 

He thought the matter was closed forever with that, though some part of him did wonder whether it could be that easy…

But everyone knew that heroes always won and bandits always got what was coming to them.

Millions of miles away Rhys sat alone in a room staring at the white clothing laid out on a divan and all he could feel was pain.

He had been stalling over actually checking out his wedding clothing, since the last rehearsal but with only a few days left till the wedding, he couldn't procrastinate anymore. And Jack was bound to arrive in a few hours too, so that didn’t leave too much time for anymore dilly-dallying.

And suddenly he felt pain and he had to sit down for a few minutes.

It was really strange, like someone or something ripped his heart out of his chest and he had a sudden bad feeling.

He absently rubbed his chest and touched the white material with trembling hands, before he stood up and staggered out of the room. 

He needed some fresh air, so he found the closest balcony.

It was close to midnight on Promethea and he looked at the skyline, watched the city in the distance all lit up in the dark.

He really needed to get some news from Pandora.

He wasn’t that restricted as he was a few days ago, but he was still monitored and some of his off-planet privileges were still revoked for ‘his safety’. 

Kind of felt like he was a misbehaving teenager grounded by their parental unit at times, just with a lot more guns around.

Still, he did everything perfectly and the tight control eventually faded a little bit and he could finally exploit some loopholes. 

Like the archive he found. 

Nobody cared what he did in the old palace. 

They were sure that the place was secure enough for him to do whatever he wanted to do.

He played around with some of the systems so that he had access to the local infrastructure on Promethea, but he couldn’t connect the whole thing to the ECHOnet.

Maybe when his access to it was reinstated it would be easy, but he wasn’t sure he would get that back before the wedding, so he had to rig something up if he wanted to get in contact with Sasha and Fiona (and Vaughn).

He nodded at the Raptor who stood on the balcony closest to him before he walked back into his room and got down to business.

He gutted whatever pieces of technology he could find in the room, then when that wasn’t enough, he detached his cybernetic arm and worked it into the mess he made of the column’s wiring.

When he powered it up, it glitched for a few seconds, before the holoscreen showed up and he had limited access to the ECHOnet.

He knew that the moment he reached out to Pandora he would have a limited time to… do whatever he needed, before the power supply would be a bit fried (he had a knack for messing with electronics, he did some university courses since he got away from Pandora, but he wouldn’t call himself even close to having a degree in engineering) and before Hyperion would show up to investigate.

So by then, he needed to be back in his room and to have something of an explanation.

Asking for forgiveness would be easier than trying to ask permission from his erstwhile fiancé who wasn’t even on the same planet as him.

With that thought, he called the farm, and with every passing second the call didn’t go through the little ball in his throat was getting tighter and tighter, choking him up.

Then Sasha’s face showed up, very blurry, kind of pixelated at places, but it was definitely her shouting for Vaughn.

“... Rhys? Can you… hear me? Rhys?” She asked and the video shook like she was running somewhere, still trying to find Vaughn. “Rhys, oh my god, Rhys, we have been trying to reach you for ages, where are you?!” She was rushing out the words jumbling all together at some points, but Rhys got the gist.

“Promethea, I’m under heavy guard right now. Is there a problem?”

There was some scrambling around the receiver and he could see Vaughn’s face squeezed next to Sasha’s.

“Bro!”

“Bro!”

“Stop that, both of you!” Sasha interrupted their exuberant greetings before they got carried away. “Vaughn!”

The spectacled man pouted before he told Rhys all about how he was worried about the way Rhys left the planet and how they asked around to figure out exactly what happened.

“Especially when we heard that you were kidnapped by an actual Vault Hunter? For once I was actually grateful for Handsome Jack.” Vaughn said, Sasha chimed in with some swearing at Jack before Vaughn grabbed back the receiver and continued. “So when the Vault Hunter was taken into custody and you were gone we started fearing the… Rhys? Are you okay?”

Rhys was not okay.

“Vaughn, can you repeat what you said? What custody?”

“Hyperion custody? The Vault Hunter who kidnapped you to murder you was taken into Hyperion custody, the entire ECHOnet is blaring that, how can you not know that?” He asked confused.

“What?” He asked, with growing trepidation. “I wasn’t taken by a Vault Hunter, I was saved by them from my kidnappers!”

Sasha and Vaughn looked at each other before Sasha grimaced.

“They saved my life and Jack promised to let them go... “Rhys babbled. “It was Zer0, Sasha! It was Zer0.”

“What? Zer0 died years ago, because of the Vault Hunters, Rhys! Did you hit your head or something?” She interrupted in complete disbelief.

“No, no! Zer0 is alive, they became a Vault Hunter and saved me! We wanted to get away so that I didn’t have to marry Jack, to Sanctuary… Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Oh, Rhys…” Sasha started, her voice wobbling. Vaughn looked to the side, one hand on his mouth. “The Vault Hunter’s body was dropped off near Sanctuary a bit earlier today.”

Total silence, Rhys only heard his own heartbeat in his ears like it was a drum.

Zer0 was taken into custody?

Zer0 was dead?

No, that couldn’t be. 

Jack promised him that he would let them go.

Jack promised him that he would not harm them.

Jack promised…

Jack promised that he would deliver them near Sanctuary.

Jack promised that _ he _ wouldn’t harm them and that _ he _would let them go.

Not Hyperion.

Rhys watched with empty eyes as the connection fizzled and the power shorted out, the ECHOnet connection gone, only the local grid was accessible.

He grabbed his arm and set out back to his room, dropping the mess of wires and bits and bolts onto his bed and dropped down next to it, his legs not bearing his weight anymore.

Zer0 was dead. Now… what?

Tears dripped from his eyes and he couldn’t breathe, but he didn’t care. Zer0 was dead and they died because of him. Because he was stupid enough to trust in the words of his fiancé.

He sobbed and screamed for a few hours, and nobody came to investigate. He laid on the floor, eyes and nose red, a complete mess when he noticed that.

He sat up and thought for a few seconds.

He wanted the guards to investigate, he wanted Jack to arrive, he wanted to scream at him. 

He wanted to demolish him.

And nobody came to see what the call was about, and he couldn’t have done anything to mask that, so he knew that someone should have noticed it.

There was this quiet beeping sound almost rhythmic and he looked for the source, finding his arm, with its palm up flashing with a small light to the same rhythm. 

He heaved himself up, curiosity tickled, because that shouldn’t have been possible. 

The power core was supposed to be fried - it should be a hunk of dead metal and wiring.

Like it knew that Rhys was watching, the fingers moved on their own and he was looking at his own hand giving him a thumbs-up.

‘What in the hell was going on?’ He thought and rubbed his aching eyes with his flesh hand.

His hand waved at him again.

He blinked a few times in silence and shook himself before he grabbed his cybernetic arm which seemed to have gained sentience and quickly fixed himself up.

He had a trip to make in the morning, to get a new power core but he had a few things to do before that.

With that goal in mind, he walked back into the dome.

~~~

In another part of the galaxy, Pandora again, in a certain dive bar a woman slammed the doors open and shouted something like this:

“Which fucker can help me get into Sanctuary in the shortest possible time?!”

Of course, this caused a bar fight, in which Fiona met her future wife-to-be, a certain blue-haired-siren. And her possible future husband-to-be, if he would ever be capable of consenting to things like marriage, sexual relationships, etc.

Not that Fiona knew that, her first thoughts when the fight broke out was somewhere between ‘Shit’ and ‘Fuck’. She crawled under a table, repeatedly smashing her boot into some guy's face. Moxxi screeched in the background that she should have moved her bar to Sanctuary already, damnitall. A certain psycho got his kicks out of whirling around bandits, while his siren companion tested how far she could throw people with her mind.

It was pure chaos.

When the dust settled and Fiona was dragged out by the other woman from her hiding place she was kind of dumbstruck when she saw the face staring at her, her heart in her chest because she was hot. The psycho was hot too, but she was hotter than the burning sun and that was saying something because behind her there was Moxxi, whom she thought to be the hottest woman she had ever seen so far.

“Hi…?” She offered when the silence started growing uncomfortable and her brain booted back up. “I need to get to Sanctuary to save my little brother from marrying this asshole…?”

The three before her looked at each other, before Moxxi and the blue-haired woman nodded and she was thrown into a chair.

“Start talking, sweetheart, we ain’t got all day.” Maya said and leaned on the bar. Krieg dropped down started drawing into the pool of blood and beer on the floor.

“Uhm, my sister and her friend accidentally told our quasi little brother that his love was dead and that his fiancé killed them, and the call cut off, so I need to get to Promethea as soon as possible before he does something really stupid?”

Maya blinked at the rant before she answered. “As good a reason as any, I guess. But why Sanctuary?”

“They were a Vault Hunter supposedly and I figured that would be the easiest way off the planet.” Fiona shrugged.

Maya felt cold sweat break out on her back and even Krieg stopped drawing to stare up at the increasingly more nervous lady in a hat.

“Vault Hunter? Your little brother’s love was a Vault Hunter… and your little brother is marrying soon?”

“Yep.” Fiona nodded so rigorously, even her hat slipped off. “I figured they could help me if I brought back one of their own’s body.”

Maya needed a drink.

A really hard one and Moxxi must have sensed something because she slid her a shot, which she downed immediately.

“Is your little brother’s name by any chance… Rhys?”

Fiona smiled and if Maya wasn’t thinking about her and Krieg’s approaching demise at the hands of the Vault Hunters when they figure out that they were indirectly responsible for the death of one of their own… she would have noticed that it was a very nice smile.

But she was contemplating her approaching mortality and she didn’t even hear what the woman was talking about or when Krieg started speaking too.

However, she did notice, when the psycho next to her went completely still like a statue.

“... Count Nakayama? He had a strange number of fingers, yes, on both hands.”

“WHERE IS THE BEEF?”

“Probably on Helios? Creep fucked off of Pandora with the asshole.” 

Krieg stood up and grabbed the woman’s arms and started dragging her to the door.

“Krieg? Where are you going?” Maya followed a few steps behind, hurriedly saying goodbye to Moxxi.

“To Sanctuary!” He shouted back, dropped the woman’s hand and started dragging the pod. The pod which probably housed their dead Vault Hunter.

She cursed for a few seconds before she ran after them.

And that’s how Fiona found herself eventually in Sanctuary, led by a psycho and a siren. 

Said siren looked into the pod and knocked on the monitor built in it.

“Say… is this thing working correctly?”

Fiona looked down at it too and she found nothing out of the ordinary, so she nodded.

“Are you sure? Completely sure of that?” The siren asked again.

Fiona didn’t understand what the deal was, but she nodded again. 

“Yeah, it does.”

The siren shook her head and turned to tap on the crouching psycho’s shoulders.

“We need to get to the Miracle Man.” He didn’t ask questions, just started dragging the pod away.

“Where are you taking them?” Fiona asked alarmed.

“If the pod is working correctly, then your Vault Hunter is… still slightly alive.” She grinned at the younger woman, happier now that she knew that they wouldn’t be hunted down by the Vault Hunters at least. “And all we need a little miracle.”

After some twists and turns, they managed to find a dilapidated house that proudly offered miracles. 

This wasn’t the only house that did the same, but if rumors could be believed then the actual owner was truly a miracle worker, once upon a time in the employ of people such as the Emperor of Atlas, then the Emperor of Hyperion. Before the latter decided that he didn’t care about the miracle man when he raised some concerns about the chosen successor of the Hyperion Empire.

The joke was on him.

The Emperor of Hyperion was murdered by his chosen successor, who was murdered by someone else in the line and it went on and on.

Some rumors said that it was all the plan of Handsome Jack, but those rumors were ruthlessly pushed down and the narrative that Jack saved the Empire from a never-ending familial feud was born.

Knowing what she knew now, Fiona could totally believe that there wasn’t any coincidence of Jack appearing and winning the throne. 

“MIRACLE MAX, WE NEED A MIRACLE!” And the psycho slammed their fists on the door repeatedly. 

“Coming!” And when the banging didn’t stop, the voice was louder and way more irritated than before. “I SAID I’M COMING WHAT’S SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU CAN’T… stop banging on my door, Krieg… Maya?” The man wiped his hands on his apron and looked confused at the three people before him.

Maya sighed before she jumped in.

“Hi Roland, we need your help.” 

“If you need his help, you are in deep shit, honey. Lost his mojo, when he lost his confidence!” A woman’s voice shouted down and they looked up to the balcony.

“Get back inside, you witch!” Roland shouted up and the red-haired woman laughed.

“Oh, so when a man does it it’s a miracle, but when a woman does, she is a witch, that’s what you are saying?”

"I never said that!" Was the retort and the two started bickering, seemingly forgetting their audience of three.

"Who is she?" Fiona sidled up to Maya and whisper asked.

"Roland's ex, Lilith."

"Wait… Lilith, THE Lilith? Firehawk Lilith?" 

"Yup." The siren nodded, watching the awe on her face.

"I always wanted to be like her when I was a kid. My role model…" Fiona sighed and Maya suppressed a giggle.

"Oh, so you do know me! Hear that, Roland?!" Lilith crowed from her perch. "Once again, one point to me… Or should I call you Miracle Max?"

"Ugh, not funny."

And they started arguing again.

"As interesting as it is to watch you two flirt…"

"Hey!"

"What?"

"We really need you to check on the Vault Hunter in the pod and like…" Maya trailed off once she noticed that she was in the cross-eye of a pair of gold and a pair of brown. "What did I say?"

Lilith appeared next to the pod, tattoos dimming and Fiona grabbed Maya's arm who patted her hand absently.

"Hm. Roland?"

"What now?"

"You will want to take this one."

"I'm retired, no miracles in me anymore."

"It's Mordecai's kid."

The man pressed a hand against his temple before he sighed once.

"Bring them in. We'll figure out something."

So, Krieg dragged the pod inside the house, to a curtained off area and Maya and Fiona followed them all inside.

Interior decoration consisted of guns, more guns, and guns, pretty standard Pandoran stuff. Maybe that’s why the three of them started migrating around, ooh-ing and aah-ing over certain guns, while strange sounds and cursing sounds came from behind the curtain. 

Well, Fiona sometimes looked around worriedly, when cackling and drilling sounds could be heard, she suddenly felt like Dr. Ned was around somewhere… hiding… ready to unleash his horrors on all of them.

That would have been the option to take Zer0 to - last time she heard he managed to resurrect the dead. More or less.

“I got Second Wind, metaphorically speaking, breath overrated.” And those words were followed by a slamming sound and Roland’s cursing.

“God damn you two, not in my house!”

The trio ran to the nearest curtain and pretty much ripped it off from its hooks, trying to see what was happening there. All they could see was Lilith glowing and Zer0 standing there with several Insta Health syringes still sticking out of them.

Roland stood between them like he was herding skags, moaning about his destroyed furniture and how hard it was to scavenge some of that stuff.

“Where is Rhys? How did you get here Lilith? Where am I?” Came the rapid-fire questions from the Assassin, who was threateningly holding a few scalpels. It looked a bit strange in their hands, but neither Fiona nor Maya was about to point that out.

“No idea, I walked, Sanctuary.” The tattoos dimmed and she waved a hand. “Can you drop those; you are making Roland nervous. He lost his mojo.”

“Would you stop saying that?!”

“Mojo, mojo, he lost his mojo!”

“Lilith!”

“What is so bad about that word, huh?”

And the bickering started again leaving a somewhat-confused looking Zer0 standing to the side, just unsticking the empty vials from various body parts.

Fiona walked up to them and stood a few feet away, just standing there until she realized that Zer0 didn’t notice her. Or they noticed her just didn’t deem her dangerous.

So, she cleared her throat and tried to get their attention. 

“Um… Vault Hunter?” No reaction. “Zer0?”

That got something, the blank mask turned toward her and she felt the same chill she did years ago when that stranger came to the farm and asked about Rhys’ whereabouts.

She couldn’t take the silence so she had to break it.

“Rhys is on Promethea. He kinda thinks that… you are dead. Again?” She laughed nervously and watched them carefully. The Assassin seemed to develop a tick.

“DEATH-BIRTH!” 

“Krieg!”

The masked figure turned towards the two, who waved at them somewhat apprehensive. Last time they saw them, they kidnapped their love and tried to murder them. Not the best first impressions.

Also, definitely not how one makes friends.

But this is Pandora, so Zer0 watched the two of them in silence before they turned to Fiona, who seemed to be the only one with some answers.

“What about the wedding, on Helios between them, is that still on?”

Fiona nodded.

“It’s still on, in three days.”

“What assets do we have?” 

“You, me and the two over there.” Fiona raised a thumb towards the psycho and the siren.

“And why the two of you?” Zer0 asked from them, while Roland and Lilith stood to the side, still arguing about one thing or another.

Maya opened her mouth to answer the question, but Krieg was faster.

“Redrum.”

Zer0 nodded slightly. They could understand that it was a solid reason.

“Siren.” Two women raised their head at that before it became clear that Zer0 was talking to Lilith. “Would the Vault Hunters help in humiliating Handsome Jack?”

Lilith slowly smiled and cracked her knuckles.

“The most noble goal of all… I’m sure I can get some of them on board with that.” She went to the door before she turned around. “See you tomorrow at the extraction point.”

Then she went invisible and they were left gaping in her wake.

Maya looked at Roland who was putting away a chemistry set and some bottles filled with different plants and stuff.

“Don’t look at me, I’m retired.” That was all he said to them before they were shuffled out of the house.

“Good luck on your… thing. Have fun storming the palace. Try not to die.” 

And then the door slammed shut.

Fiona shrugged before she followed Zer0 who was already striding away.

They had a wedding to stop, nobility to murder and a bride to kidnap.

Easy-peasy.

~~~

Let’s not talk about the ride to Helios, because it was one part boredom and three parts utter hell.

It turned out, taking a bunch of Vault Hunters and sticking them on one ship without plenty of space and adding in some bandits too… made for an interesting ride.

If by interesting one meant horrifying.

Fiona was quite happy that she wasn’t part of that, because she decided to stay in Sanctuary in the end.

After some consideration, she wasn’t sure she could actually pull the trigger if it came down to it and deemed herself a bit of a liability. She got Vaughn and Sasha to come to Sanctuary and they camped out in the city, under the grumpy eye of Miracle Roland.

But let’s get back to Helios.

Rhys got taken to the planet of his wedding a few hours before the event. By then he did whatever he could and waited for his husband-to-be with dry eyes.

He felt full of murdery feelings, but no tears anywhere in sight, so he felt like he had succeeded in something already.

In his rooms, the grand white clothing was laid out and four women moved around the suite, putting the finishing touches here and there.

Soon, he would dress in the white clothing signifying his innocence into going into this wedding, however laughable that thought was, and he would stand before millions of eyes watching his every move and marry the man who was responsible for the death of his love.

And Rhys would be responsible for his death, he would make sure of that. One of the women turned to the door alertly and soon Rhys could hear the unmistakable voice of Jack.

“And where is my blushing bride?” He asked and slammed the door open to the room. Rhys remembered one superstition about grooms not seeing their brides before the wedding in their wedding clothes and he dismissed it. 

“Did my savior get safely back to Sanctuary?” He asked without turning around watching Jack from the mirror. His fiancé barely stopped, not even a moment’s hesitation when he crossed the room and sat down on a divan, arms thrown over its back.

“Who cares, Cupcake?”

Rhys sighed like he was put upon and pressed a hand down on the white underclothing he was going to wear under the various layers.

“I do, Jack. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have asked you to promise that.”

Jack sat up straighter from his slouch, his half-buttoned shirt opening up and Rhys didn’t have to remind himself that he could not underestimate the man before him. 

He was rather down in the succession line originally, but somehow the people before him turned up dead one by one, and eventually, only Jack remained. That wasn’t luck.

“And I do have to wonder, Cupcake. What do you have to do with a bandit like that?”

“They saved me. I made a promise and you swore, too.” He turned to Jack and the attendants in the room stood stiff in the growing tension.

Jack slowly smiled, one hand under his head, before he smoothly stood up and walked up to Rhys.

The giant mirror showed them both, Jack slightly shorter than him, but he was wider in the shoulders. 

One hand was held against Rhys’s throat a gentle pressure only, but Rhys went still. One mismatched set of eyes watched another set through the mirror.

“No, Cupcake. I don’t think that’s it. That was personal for you… you would have to be an idiot to sacrifice your little secret because of some gratitude. No, you made a deal with me for them.”

Rhys swallowed against his hand, his Adam’s apple bobbing against his palm.

“But nevermind that. You are mine now.”

And with that, he let go and strode out of the room.

When he was a few steps over the doorstep and his attendants fluttered around him, Rhys rushed to the door and shouted at his back.

“Did they make it back to Sanctuary?!”

“Sure, Sugar.” Jack answered without even turning around.

Rhys took careful note that he said nothing about Zer0’s safety or even acknowledged his other promises regarding them.

He slumped against the door and watched them leave, one of the women attending them came to help him inside and directed him to sit down on a chair before he fell over.

“They are dead. They are really dead. What am I going to do?” He asked with a broken laugh and the women looked at each other before one of them patted his back somewhat awkwardly.

“There, there, there.”

“Thank you, Artemis.” Actually, that made Rhys laugh harder before he swept back his hair and stood up. “Athena, Atropos we will finish getting ready. Alectrona, the clothing, Artemis would you help out with that too?”

The blonde woman smiled at him and nodded before she swept off to the divan, after the redhead. 

Rhys sighed and shook himself before he joined the other two.

~~~

By the time Zer0 and the rest of their little group landed on Helios, the wedding had already started.

Rhys, resplendent in white walked down to the altar, the train of his clothing dragging behind, Jack waiting there for him in black and gold.

The choir was singing, a priest was droning before all of them, the entire Imperial Court was sitting or standing around.

Several bots were flying around broadcasting the wedding, while millions of people watched it, or were going to watch the recordings. It had been several years since any of the Hyperion Imperials had a wedding with much fanfare.

And since there weren’t many Hyperion Imperials left, it was bound to be a large celebration. 

When they touched down the tarmac, Zer0 was not on the ship anymore. They jumped out a few minutes earlier when the wedding hall was in view so that they didn’t have to get back from the port, possibly wasting time.

There were a few with them who made the same jump, but most of them would have to get back from the landing zone. 

Some of the Marksmen on the roofs were handled before they jumped, silently shot down, so they wouldn’t raise the alarms.

Zer0 surveyed their surroundings before they looked down from the tallest spire of the Grand Imperial Cathedral of Helios and tried to figure out a way inside.

Rhys was down there and if the broadcast could be believed he was getting closer and closer to actually marrying Handsome Jack. And that wasn’t gonna happen.

Not on their watch. 

Next to them, Lilith stood with the Cathedral’s blueprints out, scrolling through the holo, zooming in and out of it. 

“There is a tunnel into the Crypt on the east side, out other bet is this entrance which supposedly goes into the Cloister. We should… Zer0?”

But when she turned around there was suspiciously Zer0 shaped absence on the roof and she started hurriedly comming the others.

Meanwhile, Zer0 was currently rappelling down the sides of the glorified church before they found a large enough window, admired the pretty glass for a second before they pushed themselves off of the stonework and gained enough momentum to shatter it all on impact.

Glass rained down on the not-so-surprised-but-still-were-hoping-they-would-get-a-calm-event wedding guests before bullets rained down on a few of them and someone started shrieking.

Rhys stood there gobsmacked in the middle of the walk up to the altar, his eyes only on the masked figure in black who landed between him and Jack.

He pinched himself through layers upon layers and he heaved a deep breath, trying to suppress sobs. The armor, the mask, the sword, the rifle, everything was the same, but he wasn’t about to start hoping that Zer0 cheated death once again.

Not until he could be sure that this wasn’t just a hallucination or something, that Zer0 was under all that synthetic leather and reinforced polymer. 

“I have arisen, you will regret taking him, my vengeance is close.”

And Rhys was never so happy to hear a haiku in his life more than that moment, but the seeds of doubt were still there, just waiting at the edge for him to lose himself. He could see the shifting Athena and a small flickering at her wrists and he looked at her for a second or two.

The other three women in the white suits around him were still on alert but there was no tensing up on their part anymore.

“Who the hell are you again?” Jack finally found his voice and finished gaping at the completely destroyed rose window to start to get really annoyed.

The figure didn’t answer his question and there was only an awkward silence during their stared down, mask to mask, broken by a hesitant Rhys.

He moved a few steps closer to the figure in black, not Jack, but the other masked one, the newcomer, one hand reaching out to them.

“Zer0?” 

They turned away from Jack and Rhys had the dubious pleasure of facing a blank black mask.

Then there was a red ‘<3’ before it flashed to a ‘0’.

And Rhys couldn’t choke down it anymore, he started rushing toward them, almost falling from the train of his dress a few times, slamming into their open arms, hugging them with all of his strength.

Zer0 clung back with the same fervor, their katana falling to the side, almost forgotten.

They let Rhys cuddle into their neck, hearing his mumbled words, while their hands flexed against the white dress drawing him nearer and nearer, Handsome Jack almost forgotten behind.

“Unhand my husband-to-be, bandit.” Jack ordered and in a second they were surrounded by several Hyperion guards. “Didn’t I kill you?”

Zer0 had a shield on them, but Rhys didn’t seem to have one on him from what they could see. There might be one hidden under the bulky layers, but they wouldn’t take chances.

So Zer0 gently pushed Rhys behind them, knowing that he would be protected from the front by them and this way the four bridesmaids could cover him from the sides. Zer0 had seen them move, knew that they were combat-ready, that they were Rhys’ bodyguards as much as they were his bridesmaids.

Their loyalty was still in question, but it was telling that they stood against the guards around them, forming a circle around Rhys’ back.

“I am immortal, your little bullet wouldn’t kill me, you will die today.”

“Cute.” Jack snorted, then received a gold pistol from the archbishop who conducted the wedding ceremony with a glint in his eyes. “We do have to test that thoroughly.”

And like that was a sign, the Hyperion guards started shooting at them.

Instant chaos descended on the cathedral's floor, the guests running and screaming in fear and the Commandos advancing on the two of them.

Athena seemingly flashed before them, and with a spark of light a giant shield digistructed before them deflecting the bullets. The same sound repeated from the sides and soon they were eclipsed in a shimmering dome, held by the four. Zer0 kneeled down and started sniping down the guards around them as much as they could.

“Athena.” Rhys said and she nodded only, one hand holding the shield, the other offered up to Rhys, who started manipulating her communicator’s holo screen deftly.

A few minutes passed like this until the redhead looked up at the ceiling with a small frown. “Incoming!” “What?” Rhys seemed quite surprised but his hands never stopped working.

Constructors got deployed, then loaded up and started digistructing Loaders when it started to seem like they could gain the upper hand over the Hyperion guards.

And then a deafening bang sounded and the Cathedral’s heavy wooden doors exploded into shards.

Lilith stood at the door, a short guy on her right with two assault rifles in each hand and on her left a mountain-like man.

“Sup.” With those incredibly inspiring words, the three of them threw themselves into the chaos, mowing down guards left and right with glee.

Behind them, a familiar pair followed, a psycho screaming about meat bicycles and a Siren with blue hair.

Rhys blinked once before he had to shake his head and go back to what he did before. They were still surrounded; the commandos were still shooting at them and Jack was still shouting his head off.

“Your Majesty?” Athena asked, some strain in her voice.

Rhys hummed, before he let go of her arm and pushed a hand through his carefully brushed hair.

“Done.” 

And with that, some of the Constructors powered down, while some of them suddenly had a red glow in their LEDs instead of the previous blue ones. The Loaders they started constructing had red lights too and they attacked the other Loaders and the Commandos too.

“You hacked them?” Zer0 asked while still continuing to shoot.

“I did.” Rhys answered and watched the fight, arms crossed on his chest. Someone threw a few grenades at some point so the entire nave and both aisles looked more and more like a warzone.

“Good idea.” 

Rhys blushed at the praise and had to turn away, so he didn’t become a stuttering mess.

Conveniently he saw the way Count Nakayama was huddling behind an overturned pew, hurling abuse at the guards around him.

Of course, somehow that creep was still alive, and that was the irony of the day.

“... contract, Cupcake.” Rhys turned to Jack, finally realizing that the man was trying to coax him. Or threaten him, he wasn’t quite sure. “This bandit turning up…” And Rhys tuned him out again.

If he continued to listen to Jack, he would go mad for sure.

The chaos got more and more explosive and Rhys started sneaking looks over their heads at the Cathedral’s ceiling and arches, looking for serious structural damage that would mean that all of it would come down on their heads soon.

Some of the pillars were already missing large pieces, others seemed to have cracks like canyons running through them. Things didn’t look too good for them and Rhys got a bit more worried with each explosion shaking plaster on their heads.

Even the best shields can’t keep several tons of stone and metal from falling on them.

“CARVINGS OF FLESH AND BLOOD, BLOOD, BONES, BONES!” Zer0 looked up at the shout and saw their resident psycho jump into the middle of a group of guards, repeating those words over and over again. Following him behind was Maya, all lit up. The blue-haired siren waggled her fingers at the watching Assassin, before she went back to phase-locking people up, while Lilith blasted them away from a few meters. They worked well together; it was kind of interesting to see. 

Rhys could feel his tattoos itching but he ignored them. 

“Shields are going down in a few minutes.” The redhead bridesmaid stated and shot another Loaderbot down. 

Handsome Jack was behind the altar, using it as a cover, shouting orders and shooting people.

But his forces were dwindling down and no reinforcements seemed to arrive after a while from the outside after a few times there was a new squad of Hyperion guards popping up from the sides. 

“It’s collapsing.” Athena alerted them when the shield dome started disintegrating from the top. 

“We are going to be okay.” Rhys said and looked around again, there were a lot less people trying to kill them than at the start. There were also a lot more broken bots and dead bodies between the pews.

“(Make him pay for what they did to us. We’ll have our vengeance.)”

“WE’LL HAVE OUR VENGEANCE!”

There was a familiar voice screaming out once before it got cut almost immediately and the Count was mostly dead on the ground too with an ax sticking out of his chest.

Krieg was heaving over him, dripping with blood.

“You… you failure…” He whispered those words, then his eyes went glassy and Count Nakayama was no more. 

“(It’s done…?”)

And then Krieg started screaming, not words, just screaming, before it started to form into sentences.

“... the voice is not gone. The voice is NOT STOPPING. IT’S NOT STOPPING, IT’S STILL HERE, IT’S NOT GONE, GONE WITH THE WIND! SHUT-SHUT-SHUT-SHUT UP!”

“Well.” Came Jack’s drawl as some of the fighters stopped to stare at the psycho in the middle of it all. Maya promptly shot a Commando in the head as she walked up to him, trying to console him. She could do so, it was perfectly clear to anyone with eyes that the Vault Hunters decimated the guards inside and only a few remained alive, who were already clustered around Handsome Jack. “Savages. Maniacs. Psychopathic murderers. Is this who you want to surround yourself with, Cupcake? These lowlives, these useless bandits?” He opened up his arms and Rhys couldn’t stop the frown from forming on his face. “You could have everything you ever wanted; you could have the entire galaxy in your palms.”

Rhys stood there watching his theatrics and could only see a bitter old man.

He felt a hand sneak into his and squeezed Zer0’s fingers in answer, drawing Jack’s gaze to the movement and making him sneer.

“Of course… You can take a dumbass out of Pandora, but you can’t take Pandora out of the dumbass.” The mask stretched somewhat unnaturally in a grin and Rhys shivered a bit, causing Zer0 to tense up. “You can’t run, Rhysie, we have a deal. I’ll always find you and I’ll kill everyone you hold dear… Starting with the pair of sisters and your short little friend maybe. Or should I start with your Vault Hunter friend for disrupting our wedding in such a way?”

There wasn’t any sound as Zer0 drew their katana from its sheath, but no one could mistake the threat that the dark blade presented. Handsome Jack’s face twisted a little bit before he got even angrier.

“I’ll enjoy hearing you beg for your life, Vault Hunter.”

While it was disturbing to hear, and Rhys had some issues with breaking the terms of a contract he made, it was growing quieter and quieter with each passing moment and word out of Jack’s mouth. 

Jack didn’t fulfill his part of their deal.

Rhys had no reason to hold up his part of the bargain, especially not with the way the Cathedral echoed with the pained whimpers of the still alive Hyperion guards. 

All in all, Jack lost in more ways than one, he just didn’t seem to acknowledge it yet.

“The only one who will beg here is you Jack” Rhys finally snapped. “You broke our deal, the moment you killed them. Do you remember that ** you **not harming them was also part of our deal or is your old age finally catching up to you?”

Jack smiled at him, and it was a terribly ugly thing, completely unrepentant. But why would he be ashamed or unhappy about his decision to kill Zer0? It wasn’t a part of his personality.

“Cupcake, Rhysie...” Jack started, but Zer0 had enough.

In a split second, the Commandos at Jack’s side crumbled and he had a slender blade across his neck, the edge resting on his skin.

“Do not call him that, you have already lost Jack, would you like to beg?”

“Zer0.” Rhys called out and the Vault Hunter tilted their head towards him.

“If we won’t die now, he will haunt us forever, we both know that Rhys.”

Rhys shook his head.

“He won’t. Trust me, Zer0, he won’t be able to. Never again. Handsome Jack is finished. Hyperion is finished.”

Zer0 hesitated, then lowered their blade with a sigh before jumping back to Rhys and gathering him up in an embrace, despite the dusty and bloody white clothing making him weight twice as much as he did without it all.

Rhys nuzzled into their neck, wishing he could take off their helmet to kiss them, but he couldn’t forget about the bots that were still broadcasting the events that were happening.

Also, the way his humiliated fiancé was glaring at them both, that was kind of a mood killer too.

This almost idyllic scene was interrupted when one of his bridesmaids cleared her throat.

“Your Majesty, the troops are waiting for your command.”

Rhys sighed, Zer0 had a confused expression on and the woman waited patiently.

“Is Gortys ready?” He asked and he nodded at her affirmation. “Thank you, Athena.”

He patted Zer0’s arms to put him down, then grabbed their hand to lead them out of the destroyed Cathedral, leaving behind Jack. 

Rhys met the eyes of a bearded man wearing a red bandana on the second floor before they nodded almost imperceptibly to each other. 

He wasn’t sure what to feel about Jack’s possible death, but it was out of his hands. The Vault Hunters would decide what to do - he had something else to show to his Vault Hunter.

Outside it was almost as chaotic as the inside of the wedding was, but there was a lot more captured Hyperion personnel than the bloodbath that was the Cathedral’s insides. Armored figures in red and black patrolled around the place, bowing to them in passing.

Bowing to Rhys, actually and Zer0 had so many questions.

If they remembered correctly, Rhys was bona fide royalty somehow?

“What is going on?”

“Let’s just say that Handsome Jack’s biggest mistake was underestimating people. Turns out, I don’t really do well when someone tries to pressure me. So, I got myself some collateral along the way.”

At first, that was all he said as they swept out into a large square where more of the black and red troops were waiting around and also large ships of all kinds were landing and taking off.

“You weren’t the only one who spent the last few years doing something interesting. I just went about it a bit differently.” He shrugged and continued to lead Zer0 somewhere. The Assassin followed him without a question. “Less outright murder and more building connections.”

“Rhys… what did you do?” They asked eventually when the largest ship they had seen landed before them and troops bearing the Crimson Lance insignia piled out in droves followed by bots. And one small round bot too, excitedly waving her hands around and rolling towards them.

Rhys looked up at Zer0 with a grin, before standing on his tiptoes and pressing a small kiss to their mask.

[Art by hyperioncompanyman](https://hyperioncompanyman.tumblr.com/post/187630770650/rhys-what-did-you-do-they-asked-eventually)

_ “I’ve revived a titan to fight a titan. And we won in the end.”_

_~~~_

"And what happened after that Grandma?" The little girl in the bed asked, clutching a small bloodwing plushie. A bit fraying at the edges, but the red bird was obviously well-cared for.

"Who knows, my little angel? Tomorrow is a big day, sleep now." The older woman kissed the little girl on her forehead, before standing up and turning off the lights with a thought.

"Grandma? The Imperial Consort and the Vault Hunter... they lived happily ever after, right?"

The woman smiled at the guards outside the Imperial Princess' doors, making them jump at the attention of their Empress.

"They sure did, my dear. Goodnight, sleep tight." 

And with that, Angel closed the door behind her and started walking away. She stopped to stare at the portraits on the walls, her eyes lingering on the masked Imperial Consort's hands on the previous Emperor's shoulders.

There were only four fingers on each hand.

~~~

~~~

**THE END**

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea what to write here. Thank you for reading, I hope it wasn't too disappointing. :)  
It was surprisingly flow-ey to write? Like I sat down, wrote until I was dead tired, went to sleep, worked and sat down again to write and the words just came. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> Also thank you for every view, kudo and comment this story gets!


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